Kathmandu- Nepal confirmed their place in Division 2 with a 36 runs win ( by D/L method) over host Malaysia. Nepal along with Uganda will now participate in the ICC WCL Division 2 competition to be hosted by Namibia from January 15-24, 2015. The other four teams that will participate in the competition are Kenya, Netherlands, Canada and host Namibia.
In a rain interrupted match, Nepal won the toss and invited Malaysia to bat first. Malaysia made 142 runs losing all its wickets in 43.3 over. Nepal kept taking wickets at regular intervals to dealt Malaysia batting. Skipper Paras Khadka provided Nepal the first breakthrough in the last ball of 2nd over. He had Nasir Shafiq caught by Malla for one run. Anwar Arudin blasted two fours off Sompal Kami in the 3rd over.Anwar again blasted three consecutive fours off Basanta Regmi in the 7th over. Paras Khadka then bowled a maiden 8th over.
Paras Khadka bowled a maiden 8th over. Malaysia reached the 50 run mark with a four from Anwar off Sagar Pun. Anwar blasted another three fours in an off Sagar. Nepal keep on taking wickets from another end as Paras took the wicket of Malaysian Captain Ahmed Fiaz in the first ball of 10th over. He got Faiz caaught by Malla for 5 runs. He bowled his 2nd consecutive Maiden Over as well. Malaysia scored 54 runs in the power play overs with Anwar scoring 40 runs out of that.
Paras Khadka had his third victim as Suharril Fetri in the last ball of 12th over. Paras had his fourth victim in 13.6th over. This time Shafiq Sharif went back to pavilion with just one run to his name. Anwar Arudin was batting well at the another end and he got his fifty in the 19th over.
Sagar Pun took the wicket of danger man Anwar Arudin. He scored 69 runs before being caught by Paras off Sagar in the last ball of 32th over. Anwar Aruddin with Khizar Hayat shared a partnership of 46 runs for the fifth wicket.
Bhuwan karki removed Suresh Navaratnam for two runs in his next over to leave Malaysia 115/6 by 34th over. Sagar Pun finished with figures 10-3-29-2.Another set bataman Khizar Hayat who scored 23 threw his wicket in the 35th over. Shakti Gauchan got him as his first wicket.
Malaysia soon surrendered to Nepal as they lost their another two wickets in next two over one each to Bhuwan Karki and Shakti Gauchan. A late blitz from Durgasingam made sure that Malaysia score 142 runs. He scored 23 runs before gifting his wicket to Bhuwan Karki.
Nepal started the chase in a fashion. Naresh Budhayer blasted 2 fours in the first over. Nepal then lost Subash Khakurel in the third over. He was caught by Khizar Hayat off Navaratnam for 3 runs.
Next man in, Gyanendra Malla started quite aggressively hitting Navaratnam for two fours in the 5th over. Nepal finished on 39/1 in 7 overs before the lunch break.
Nepal reached the 50 runs mark at 10.3 overs. Naresh hit the first six of Nepal’s innings off Suharril in the last ball of 14 over. He hit another four in the next over to bring 50 runs partnership between him and Gyanendra Malla .
Khizar Hayat broke the 69 runs partnership between Gyanendra Malla and Naresh Budhayer. He had Gynendra Caught by Nasir in the 3rd ball of 24th over. But that wasn’t enough for Malaysia to control the game. Two over later rain interrupted the match. The match was then decided as per D/L method according to which Nepal won the match by 36 runs. Nepal top the table with this win.
Nepal will take Uganda in the final tomorrow.
