Nepal thrashed Bloomfield by 176 runs to keep winning momentum. Nepal is touring Sri Lanka for preparation camp before Asia Cup Qualifier 2018. They won two of three scheduled practice matches. This match’s result was based on DLS method as bad light came to the play in later half of the match.
Bloomfield was clueless in front of Nepal’s bowling line and faced heavy defeat of 176. Ruwin Pieres (00) was sent back immediately by Lalit Bhandari. Sachin and Nipun hung for while before Nepal’s skipper roll his arm to send back Nipun (12). Rajbanshi accounted his first wicket as Sachin (30) was caught behind wicket by Subash Khakurel. Bloomfield kept losing wicket in quick-interval, hence Bloomfield was on 134/9 at 38 before bad light interrupted the play. Then officials decided not to continue the play as it had already turned dark. So Nepal was declared as winner by DLS method. Sagar Pun shone again with a ball in hand as he picked up 3 wickets. Lalit Bhandari took 2 wickets whereas Paras Khadka, Basant Regmi and Lalit Rajbanshi also chipped in with a wicket each.
Earlier, Paras Khadka won the toss and elected to bat first. Nepal’s regular opener and vice-captain of the side, Gyanendra Malla, was rested for this match. Veteran Khakurel and Young Sah came out to start the innings for Rhinos. Sah (17) was the first man to return back as he was caught by Seshan at mid-off off Imran’s delivery. Paras Khadka lost his wicket while trying to accelerate the innings. He scored run-of-ball 23. Rohit Kumar Paudel and Subash Khakurel were struggling to score. He faced too many balls before getting out. Khakurel was first among them to get out as he faced 33 balls to add 9 runs. It wasn’t a good day at office for Paudel as he expensed 39 balls for his 11 runs. Nepal was reduced to 84/4 inside 20th over. Sagar Pun, who was playing his comeback innings for Nepal, joined the crease and batted beautifully along with Dipendra Airee. Duo shared innings defining 184 runs, expensing 154 balls. Sagar Pun smashed 83 ball- 92 runs and remained 8 runs short of his well deserved century. He had already registered 3 century this year in domestic circuit. Then his counterpart, Airee, changed his gear to top level and slammed 95 ball- 121 runs. Karan KC, who was sent ahead of Sheikh, also played his part to propel Nepal total to 323 runs, losing 8 batsmen in 50 overs. KC added quick-fire 26 runs off 12 balls.
Feature Image © RamanShiwakoti
