Nepal Under-19 secured an emphatic victory against Vanuatu Under-19 in the ongoing International Cricket Council (ICC) Under-19 World Cup Qualifiers at YMCA Cricket Club, Dublin
After winning the toss, Nepal chose to bat first in a bid to take an early lead against their rivals and then restrict them below a competitive tally.
Nepal looked good from the openings with boundaries from Sagar Pun, who made it to the top order, after Subash Khakurel was given rest. However, Nepal’s opening couldn’t continue after Fajlur departed with 5 runs in his account in the 6th over.
Sagar Pun(51) and Naresh Budayair(50) holded the innings for Nepal with 76 runs partnership for second wicket. But the score on the board couldn’t continue after Sagar got run out in 22nd over, and Naresh joined the pavillion in 31st over. The skipper Prithu added 18 runs on board, Pradeep Airee added 11 runs. Thanks to the middle order Rajesh Pulami Magar(23) who made a 8th wicket partnership of 46 runs with Bhuwan Karki(20 n.o). Subendu made 20 runs while Rahul Vishwakarma added 14 runs to the account. While two of the players; Krishna Karki and Avinash Karn went without opening their account.
SS Sala took 3 wickets, JW Chilia added 2 while PK Matautaava, N Nipiko, and J Samuel grabbed a wicket each for Vanuatu.
Nepal managed to make a good total of 250 runs loosing all the wickets in the third ball of the 50th over.
Chasing the target, Vanuatu made a good start. But the wickets couldn’t continue on hold and C Blake went for a duck in his 19th ball in the 8th over. N Nipiko remained not out for the team with the highest score of all of 36 runs with 4 fours and a six. AP Stephen added 14 runs, J Samuel and PK Matautaava added 13 runs, SW Kalworai added 11 runs, K Kenneth added 3 runs while AP Stephen added a single on the board for Vanuatu. Five of the other batsman went without managing to make even a single.
Man of the match Krishna Karki took 3 wickets with a good figure of 10-1-23-3, while Rahul Vishawakarma took 4 wickets to make his tally reach 10. Bhuwan Karki grabbed 2 wickets while Prithu Baskota managed to take one for Nepal to resist Vanuatu to the lowest total of 91 runs in the 32nd over.
“I was getting a lot of assistance off the pitch. I tried all the variations today. Thankfully it worked. Our bowling is our strong point and it came good yet again. We were able to experiment as well today and there was no pressure to control the runs”,Karki told.
The Dublin leg of the tournament has now ended and the matches now move up to North-West from 3 August. In the second leg of the tournament, hosts Ireland takes on Vanuatu at Coleraine, Canada plays Nepal at Bready, Afghanistan and Namibia go head to head at Limavady, Kenya plays PNG at Strabane and Scotland takes on USA at Eglinton.
