Nepal has lost both of its matches against Sri Lanka in its last two encounters. So far Nepal’s best result in the international arena is the third position in the South Asian Basketball Championship in 2001. [break]
On Thursday evening’s late kickoff, Nepal took the first quarter 15-10 as Binod Maharjan scored six points including two three pointers. Nepal had conceded only five turnovers in the first quarter. But in the second quarter, Nepal could not control the ball and conceded 10 turnovers. Nepal lost the second quarter by 16-19 but still had a two-point lead by half time.
Sri Lanka came back into the game and tied up the score at 31-31 early in the third quarter. After that Nepal could not take hold of the game and lost by 18-6. Praneet of Sri Lanka took away victory from the hand of Nepal as he scored 20 points by the end of third period. Sri Lanka took 10 points lead by the end of third period at the overall score was 47-37.
In the fourth period, Nepal could only score six points against 18 of Sri Lanka.
Coach Dinesh Nakarmi said that the Nepali players played well but a mistake in the third period cost the match. “We are capable of defeating any team in the south Asian region except India. For that, we need to practice a lot and provide good facilities to the players,” he said.
With the defeat, Nepal will now play against Bangladesh on Friday for the third place play off.
In the other semifinal match, India thrashed Bangladesh 120-26 to set up a final showdown with Sri Lanka.
Nepal registers sweet revenge against Bangladesh
Nepal has taken revenge against Bangladesh as it registered a 64-61 victory in the final match of the league round of Mid Asia Qualifiers being held at Thyagaraj Sports Complex in New Delhi on Thursday morning. Nepal will now face Sri Lanka in the semifinal Thursday evening.
Nepal came from behind to take the game in its side after an initial setback of a 15-16 loss in the first quarter to draw 29-29 by the end of the second quarter. Nepal scored 14-13 in the second period for the draw. Nepali star player Sadish Pradhan scored 12 points by half time to guide the team for the draw. [break]
In the third quarter, Nepal took a lead by four points as it took the quarter 23-19 as the overall score was 52-48.
The last quarter became quite interesting as Nepal´s lead ended after Bangladesh leveled the score 52-52 with just 8:32 minutes left.
Nepal again took a four-point lead when 3:43 minutes were left to finish the game. Nepal maintained the lead till the end beating Bangladesh team 64-61.
It was the second victory of Nepal over Bangladesh. Nepal had defeated Bangladesh in the league round of the 11th South Asian Games held in Dhaka last year but also suffered defeat by a margin of three points in the third place play-off.
On Thursday, Pradhan scored 24 points in 18 attempts including four free throws. Bipendra Maharjan scored 16 points off 15 attempts. Nepal converted 28 shots to the basket off 69 attempts.
Shree Mithun Sarkar from Bangladesh was the highest scorer with 19 points while Mithun BK scored 15 points.
Nepal had scored two points from the turnovers and 14 points from the paint. The shootings of Nepal were not good as in the previous match as the players scored 16 points from second chance. Nepal controlled its turnovers during the match against Bangladesh in huge numbers which guided them to the victory.
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