Kathmandu- Gyanendra Malla scored a blistering century to propel Nepal to a huge 190 runs win over Singapore in the ongoing ICC WCL Division 3. It was the seventh century scored by a Nepali batsman in international one day cricket. Nepal often critisized for their batting, batted well against Singapore today thanks largely to 114 runs off 125 balls from Vice- Captain Malla. In reply, Singapore were bundled out for just 73 runs.
Malla’s maiden ton in one days was just one short of Subash Khakurel’s 115, which is the highest by Nepalese batsman in international cricket. Malla scored 13 fours and a six in his match winning innings.
Losing the toss and inserted to bat first Nepal lost Subash Khakurel for a duck in the second ball of the innings. The next man in Gyanendra started his game with a four in the fourth ball that he faced. He shared a 73 runs partnership with Naresh Budhayer for the second wicket. Naresh was out for 29 runs off 59 balls. After his wicket Nepal lost the momentum.
Captain Paras didn’t last long. He got out to Anish param in the 26th over leaving Nepal 96/3. Nepal couldn’t rotate the strike during the middle overs, consequently the pressure created by the dot balls led to the downfall of Paras as well as Naresh Budhayer.
Gyanendra and Sharad then played sensibly upto the 35th over with ones and twos. Once the power play over started, Gyanendra played agressively hitting Abhiraj Singh for 19 runs in the 36th over. Nepal collected 57 runs during the batting powerplay. Gyanendra was eventually caught out by Gaznavi off Dharmichad in the 44th over. Till then, Nepal were safely at 207/4.
At the end overs, Nepal batsman tried to score quickly olny to throw thier wickets cheaply. Binod, Sharad, Basanta all got out trying to hit the ball out of the ground. Nepal finished on 263/9 in 50 overs. Nepal scored 17 runs in the final over thanks a six a piece on first and the last ball respectively from Sagar Pun and Amrit Bhattarai. Amjad Mahboob picked four wickets for Singapore whereas Mulewa Dharmichand was more economical finisging with figures 10-3-31-3.
Nepal then bowled brilliantly uprooting Singapore for just 73 runs. Sompal Kami was brilliant with the new ball picking 4 wickets in the first 10 overs. He was equally supported by Amrit Bhattarai who grabbed two wickets. The duo shared first six wickets between them. After the tail was exposed it was just a matter of time for Left-arm Spinner Basanta to clean up Singapore’s batting in the 20th over. He got another four-er of the match. He finished with figures 4.4-1-6-2.
