Melbourne – The fourth round of ICC World Cricket League Championship for Nepal has been completed with the Netherlands topping the chart whilst Nepal sitting at Sixth position. Paras Khadka’s team had played 8 games, won 3 and lost 5.
As per the tournament structure, the top-four team will be qualified for the ICC World Cup Qualifier 2018. The future matches for Nepal will be against Kenya, Hong Kong and UAE, but all in 2017.
With the completion of Round 4 for Nepal, we have prepared the stats from 8 games.
Results
| Date | Venue | Nepal | Opponents | Results | |
| R1 | 29 July 2015 | Scotland | 232/5 (36.0 overs) | Scotland 235/7 (36.0 overs) | Scotland won by 3 runs |
| 31 July 2015 | Scotland | 167/10 (49.1 overs) | Scotland 111/1 (13.5 overs) | Scotland won by 9 wickets (D/L) | |
| R2 | 16 November 2015 | Dubai | 232/8 (50 overs) | PNG 235/8 (49.3 overs) | PNG won by 2 wickets |
| 18 November 2015 | Dubai | 224/8 (50 overs) | PNG 225/7 (49.4 overs) | PNG won by 3 wickets | |
| R3 | 16 April 2016 | Nepal | 197/5 (47.1 overs) | Namibia 195/9 (50 overs) | Nepal won by 5 wickets |
| 18 April 2016 | Nepal | 240/7 (49.5 overs) | Namibia 239/9 (50 overs) | Nepal won by 3 wickets | |
| R4 | 13 August 2016 | Netherlands | 94/10 (38.1 overs ) | Netherlands 96/3 (16.5 overs) | Netherlands won by 7 wickets |
| 15 August 2016 | Netherlands | 217/9 (50 overs) | Netherlands 198 (48.3 overs) | Nepal won by 19 runs |
Most Runs
Paras Khadka leads the batting chart with most runs in ICC WCL among all the eight-nation. His match winning inning of 103 runs against Namibia is his highest score. Sharad Vesawkar is second with 294 runs for Nepal followed by Vice-Captain Gyanendra Malla’s 186.
Apart from the Khadka, Malla and Vesawkar, the batting has not really clicked for Nepal in this tournament. The middle order batsmen have completely failed to deliver.
“The batting still needs to be dominant at certain time and the skill level needs to be improved. The potential is there but they need to stand up and the time has come. All the Players are working hard but we don’t have excuses all the time especially the youngsters”, Paras Khadka shared his disappointment to cricnepal after the end of Netherlands tour.
Khadka’s frustration is right, the young bloods has not delivered. Batsman like Rajesh Pulami, Sagar Pun, Binod Bhandari, Naresh Budhayair, Subash Khakurel and Raju Rijal were handed the opportunity but the consistency is still lacking.
The following table shows that our batting is totally dependent on the top order.
| Player | Mat | Inns | NO | Runs | HS | Ave | BF | SR | 100 | 50 | 0 | 4s | 6s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paras Khadka | 8 | 8 | 0 | 352 | 103 | 44.00 | 384 | 91.66 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 25 | 11 |
| Sharad Vesawkar | 8 | 8 | 2 | 294 | 78 | 49.00 | 485 | 60.61 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 17 | 0 |
| Gyanendra Malla | 8 | 8 | 0 | 186 | 39 | 23.25 | 272 | 68.38 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 1 |
| Anil Mandal | 6 | 6 | 0 | 134 | 100 | 22.33 | 190 | 70.52 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 1 |
| Sagar Pun | 5 | 5 | 0 | 111 | 47 | 22.20 | 230 | 48.26 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 |
Most Wickets
Left-arm offspinner, Basant Regmi leads the bowling chart for Nepal in ICC WCL matches till fourth round. He has 12 wickets from 8 matches with a strike rate of 29.6. Sompal Kami, right-handed pacer has 10 wickets whilst Skipper is in 3rd position with 7 wickets. Shakti Gauchan’s performance and form has kept him in fourth place with 5 wickets only.
| Player | Mat | Inns | Overs | Mdns | Runs | Wkts | BBI | Ave | Econ | SR | 4 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basant Regmi | 8 | 8 | 59.2 | 5 | 286 | 12 | 3/40 | 23.83 | 4.82 | 29.6 | 0 | 0 |
| Sompal Kami | 8 | 8 | 52.3 | 2 | 358 | 10 | 3/51 | 35.80 | 6.81 | 31.5 | 0 | 0 |
| Paras Khadka | 8 | 7 | 47.4 | 3 | 196 | 7 | 2/19 | 28.00 | 4.11 | 40.8 | 0 | 0 |
| Shakti Gauchan | 7 | 7 | 55.0 | 3 | 208 | 5 | 2/44 | 41.60 | 3.78 | 66.0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sagar Pun | 5 | 5 | 34.0 | 1 | 126 | 4 | 1/3 | 31.50 | 3.70 | 51.0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sandeep Lamichhane | 4 | 4 | 30.5 | 4 | 138 | 4 | 2/39 | 34.50 | 4.47 | 46.2 | 0 | 0 |
With six more matches to be played , this stats would definitely change but the team need to win all the remaining matches to be in contention for the qualifiers 2018.
