KATHMANDU, March 2: The Nepali cricket team has qualified to play in the ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup to be held in Sri Lanka in 2024.

By defeating the UAE in a qualifying match on Thursday, the Nepali team paved its way for playing in the U-19 World Cup in the past eight years. The UAE team had been the main hurdle for the Nepali team previously to qualify for the U-19 World Cup tournament. In three editions earlier, the Nepali team was defeated by the UAE.

In Thursday's match of the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup League-2 series, Nepal defeated the UAE by seven runs. In the match played on the home ground of the opponent team, Nepal won the toss and scored 191 runs against the UAE in 48.5 overs. In response, the UAE secured only 184 runs by playing 48 overs of the inning.

Nepali bowler Dipesh Kandel gave a dramatic twist to the match to take the Nepali team to the victory. Kandel took hat trick wickets to defeat the UAE.

However, the UAE kept Nepal under pressure till the 47th over. In the last three overs, the UAE required 11 runs to hit the target set by Nepal. Kandel, who was the designated bowler for the 48th over, spent three balls for three runs. But in the last three balls of the 48th over, Kandel took three consecutive wickets of the UAE.

Kandel bowled the UAE’s batsman Harshit Seth in 47.4 overs. In his bowling, the following batsman Harit Shetty was caught out by Dev Khanal, captain of the Nepali cricket team. Likewise, Kandel bowled out the UAE’s batsman Monish Gajeswaran in the last ball of the 48th over.

Khanal contributed 51 runs of 84 balls, the highest score for Nepal. Bishal Bikram KC hit 38 runs and Uttam Raghu Thapa Magar hit 36 runs. Kandel batted 15 runs.  

 
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