Janakpur edged past Region No 1 (Biratnagar) by four wickets at the TU Cricket Ground in their crucial and the last group round match.
Biratnagar won the toss and elected to bat. Biratnagar, however, could not resist attack from Janakpur bowlers and were all out for 121 runs in 32.3 overs. [break]
Man of the match Rahul Pratap Singh took five wickets for Janakpur and bundled Biratnagar at low score. Opener Aditya Shrestha struck 47 runs off 59 balls and Anup Karki added 18 runs for Biratnagar while rest of the batsmen failed to score in double digits.
Janakpur met the target losing six wickets in 28.3 overs. Janakpur also started pathetic but the undisciplined bowling from Biratnagar bowlers made them easy to win the deciding match. Biratnagar gave away 50 extras while Mohammad Ataul Haq (unbeaten 22 runs) and Bikal Bista (unbeaten 20 runs) anchored Janakpur to victory.
With the win, Janakpur gathered four points from three games to become runners up of group B. Janakpur will take on group A winners Region No 4 Bhairahawa in the semifinal on Thursday while group B winners Kathmandu will lock their horns with group A runners up Birgunj.
Meanwhile, Region No 8 Pokhara thrashed Region No 6 Baitadi by 75 runs in a meaningless match of group A. As Bhairahawa and Birgunj have already booked semifinal berth from the group, the result didn´t affect the equation of the tournament.
Pokhara, electing to bat first, were all out for 145 runs in 39.5 overs and bowled out Baitadi for 70 runs in 20.4 overs to pull a huge margin victory.
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