Cricnepal/Kathmandu: Mahabir Club absolutely thrashed South West Cricket Club, in the semi finals of the Kathmandu District Senior Team Selection Tournament, in the match played today at TU International Cricket Ground, Kritipur.
Winning the toss and batting first Mahabir posted 203 runs of the 40 overs. Bhibhuti Thapa made a half century for Mahabir and Pranil Karki picked up three wickets for South West Cricket Club. In reply South West could only get to 72 runs before bing bowled out in twenty fourth over.
Mahabir were slow to start but picked up pace after the first five overs. Bhibhuti Thapa came into the crease after Gagan Pathak bowled Sandeep Shrestha for 15 runs (16-1) in the first ball of sixth over, and held the innings together for Mahabit batting till thirty fifth over, before giving his wicket away to Pranil Karki, while trying to up the tempo. Before getting out, he made a steady 62 of 92 balls. Captain Prafulla Vaidya made a quick 32 of 29 balls and in doing so added 53 for the fifth wicket with Bhibuti, before getting out caught and bold to Pranil. Pranil ended up with figures of 8-37-3 wickets. Mahabir will helped in their cause by Southe West Bowlers giving away 32 extras, 29 of them wides and one no ball .
Chasing 204, SouthWest never looked like getting the huge target. Prajesh Bahadur Singh drew the first blood for Mahabir trapping Gagan Pathak in front of the wicket for 3 in the seventh over. Mahabir lost two more wickets for the score of 18. Chandra Krishna Mahranjan and Rakesh added a fighting 22 runs just 11 balls. Mahrajan got out to Prafulla Vaidya for 9 runs in the first ball of the same over. Prafulla got rid of Rakesh Yadav in the third ball of same over. The score was 5-41 then. The sixth wicked added 20 runs, all the scoring done by the captain Biplov as his partner Nabin Pradhan remained on zero and eventually got out to Rahul Bansal in 19th over. Biplov was run out for 20 well made runs when the score was 68. Rahul Bansal and Raunak Malla cleaned the tail picking up the remaining three wickets as South West folded for 72 runs9 of the 10 Southwest batsmen got out on lbw.
Captain Prafulla Vaidya picked up 3 wickets for Mahabir while Prajesh and Raunak Malla 2 each. Prafulla vaidya was adjudged the player of the match for his all round skills.
Mahabir will take of Baluwatar Cricket Club in the final, which will be held tomorrow at TU International Cricket Ground. Baluwatar defeated the defending champion Kathmandu Khel Mandal in the other semi final yesterday The match starts sharp at 9:00 am.
