Gyanendra inspires his team to victory

KATHMANDU, Oct 19: Skipper Gyanendra Malla's century inspired Nepal B to beat Nepal A, led by national team skipper Paras Khadka, by seven on Sunday and record back-to-back second win in the Super League cricket's second round at Tribhuvan University Cricket Ground, Kirtipur.

Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) is holding the event to select players for the ICC World Cricket League Championship's two List A matches (50-over) against Papua New Guinea to be played on November 16 and 18 in the UAE.


After recording three-wicket win over Nepal C, led by Sharad Vesawkar, in the first match of the second round, Nepal B restricted on 244 runs in 48.4 overs after posting 252 runs target.

Nepal A failed to achieve the target despite skipper Paras and Naresh Budhayer completed half centuries as well as top six batsmen scored in double figures.

Nepal A started its run chase comfortably with opener Naresh, who scored 50 off 65 balls, shared 32 runs with Mahesh Chhetri (13 off 19) for the first wicket and added 28 runs with Pradeep Airee (16 off 15) for the second wicket.

Naresh shared 49 runs for the third wicket with skipper Paras, who scored 85 runs off 86 balls that included a six and nine fours. Naresh hit a six and eight fours.

Later Paras shared 48 runs stand with Hasim Ansari (16 off 42) and 69 runs with Mahboob Alam (30 runs off 36).

But departure of Paras in the 45.1 overs left Nepal A in trouble as tail-enders cheaply lost their wickets leaving the team eight runs short.

Gyanendra and Shakti Gauchan bagged three wickets each, while Samsad Ansari took two with Lalit Singh Bhandari and Kumar Thapa claiming a wicket each for Nepal B.

Earlier, winning the toss and opting to bat first, Nepal B started its inning in a shaky manner as it lost three wickets (Subash Khakurel retired hurt on four rurns) with only 18 runs on the board.

However, Prithu Baskota (63 runs off 85 balls) shared 140 runs for the fourth wicket with skipper Gyanendra to anchor the innings and Gyanendra stole the show as he hit 103 runs facing only 91 balls and sharing 42 runs with Antim Thapa (36 off 44 balls) to put his side on fighting total.

Gyanendra (retired out) smashed four sixes and 13 fours, while Prithu cracked a six and nine fours and Antim hit two fours.

Irshad Ahmed bagged three wickets, while Karan KC, Mahboob, and Sushan Bhari picked up two wickets each.

Nepal A and Nepal C will face in the last match of the league on Monday.

According to CAN, it will select 18 players from the event and call some of the players of U-19 squad for the closed camp trainings to be started after the Dashain Festivals.

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