KATHMANDU, March 26: Skipper Rohit Kumar Paudel played a match-winning innings to help Nepal U-19 national cricket team win the match by one wicket against the Andhra Pradesh U-19 state team during the third match of the practice tour to India at Andhra Pradesh Cricket Association ground on Sunday. Nepal completed the chase of 228 runs in 47.3 overs.

Paudel, who did not play the second practice match, smashed two sixes and six boundaries during his 65-ball stay and shared a commanding partnership of 101 runs with Bhim Sarki, the second highest scorer of the innings. The right-handed middle order batsman Sarki missed a half-century by a run but contributed as a perfect foil to Paudel. Sarki played an anchor role facing 83 deliveries for his 49 runs and three boundaries in the match.

Andhra made a late comeback in the match dismissing both Sundeep Jora and Rashid Khan in his last over of the match, reducing Nepal to 224 runs for the loss of 9 wickets chasing the target of 228 runs. With two runs still required to win, Kamal Singh Airee, the hero of the first practice match when he smashed five sixes in an over, crunched a boundary to give Nepal 2-1 lead in the series. Jora contributed 19 runs whereas Kushal Malla scored 13 runs in the match. Pawan Sarraf, opening the batting, scored 30 runs from 36 deliveries which included three boundaries.  

Andhra’s SMD Kamil registered a five-wicket-haul in the match conceding 36 runs from his 10 overs. Karthik Reddy, M Bhargav, J Durga Kumar, and P Subramanyam chipped in a wicket each.

Earlier, the home team batted first and scored a total of 227 runs before getting all out in 49.1 overs. B Yogananda’s hard-worked 59 runs from 65 deliveries which did not include a single boundary helped Andhra negotiate a consistent bowling attack of Nepal U-19 led by Airee. He was supported by P Subramanyam’s 45 runs from 55 deliveries.  Likewise, opening batsman Nitesh Kumar made a well-compiled 51 runs from 59 deliveries which included six boundaries and a six. Ram Prasad scored 26 runs whereas Durga Kumar chipped in 16 runs in collective effort of Andhra batsmen to end up with 228 runs in the first innings.

Airee led the Nepali attack after missing the second match. He picked up four wickets supported by off-spinning all-rounder Sarraf who picked three wickets. Similarly, Pratish GC, Sagar Dhakal, and Rashid shared a wicket each.

Nepal now leads the four-match series 2-1 with a last match on Tuesday.

 
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