Nepal beat Namibia by 1 wicket in a heartily attached clash with a heroic performance from veteran all-rounder, Basant Regmi.
Winning the toss, Nepal’s skipper Paras Khadka, decided to back their strength and challenged host to have batted first. First, 10 overs contest was a very watchful treat for the fans as both of the teams weren’t ready to be in the backseat. Namibia lost 2 wickets inside the first power play but they weren’t behind the visitors in the match with a flurry of runs, scoring runs above the rate of 6 runs per over. Nepal’s pace bowling spearhead, Sompal Kami (3-35) provided Nepal an excellent start with the wickets of Stephen Baard and Van der inside the first powerplay. Later, he sent back Green to take three scalps of Namibian batsmen. The match was swinging on either side of Pendulum before Lamichhane destroyed the host backbone. He picked up four wickets and bowled very economically to the procured fine figure of (8.2-2-18-4). His effort was loudly applauded by his IPL franchised team, Delhi Daredevils. Paras Khadka, Basant Regmi, and Sharad Vesawkar also chipped in with a wicket each. For Namibia, despite very poor show in the middle over, Williams blistering 41 runs from 34 balls with the help of 8 shots to the fence propelled Namibia’s total to the modest score of 138 runs. Besides Williams, Green (22) and Frylinck (22) contributed notch able runs for the host.
In response, Nepal had started on the best possible worst note with losing Dilip Nath (00) without opening the team’s account. Smit sent back in-form Nath with a beautiful display of swing bowling in his first ball itself. After then, Gyanendra Malla (15) and Paras Khadka (19), who joined crease after Nath’s departure, shared steady 32 runs for the second wicket before Williams uprooted Khadka’s stump. Then, Nepal lost their 4 more batsmen for next 24 runs. They were at (56/6) in 24th over before Sharad Vesawkar (29) and Rohit Kumar Paudel (17) rescued Nepal. Sarad-Rohit’s pair shared 37 runs for the 7th wicket.
Nepal were reduced to (111-8) in 43rd over before rain interrupted the play for a while. There were very few fans and experts who rarely believed Nepal’s winning possibility from that point, but Basant’s heroic 24 runs of 24ballsreversedd everyone prediction and sealed the a thrilling a wicket victor for Nepal.
Sandeep Lamichhane was adjudged as man of the match for his magical display of spin bowling.
Nepal will face Oman tomorrow on same venue where Namibia will play against Kenya on Trustco United. Top two team of this tournament will play ICC World Cup Qualifier 2018 which will held in Zimbabwe on March.
