Combined batting and tight fielding helped Mahendranagar United to placed themselves in qualifier 2, beating CYC Attariya by 15 runs.
United were asked to bat first after losing toss. Skipper Binod Bhandari and Aasif Sheikh came out to bat first but skipper departed very quickly with 1 run in his account. His opening fellow, Aasif Sheikh (11) also couldn’t hold for long as he departed off Urao delivery. Aarif Sheikh who came to bat first at no.3 was looking on touch while on one from top order could give him a company. After departure of Aasif Sheikh, Bista (06) went back without leaving any notable contribution. United were reduced to 33-3 inside 8 overs. After then, Mehra and Sheikh added 48 runs for fourth wicket. Both of them played crucial but balls consuming inning where they failed, when team was in need of acceleration. Sheikh scored 37 ball-35 runs with 5 fours. Mehra smashed 2 fours and a six to summed up his 29 ball- 26 runs. In the end, Rohit Paudel’s 11 runs from 9 balls and Karan KC’s 24 runs from 13 balls helped United to propelled their total to 130 runs in stipulated 20 overs with the lost of 7 wickets. For Attariya, everyone who rolled arm picked up wickets. Kamal Airee picked up 2 wickets where rest bowlers managed to pick up a wicket. Karki, Urao, Chandra, Lama, Airee were other bowlers.
In response to 130 runs, Attariya lost Prem Tamang (05) very early where Chitkara (14) and Subash Khakurel added 42 runs for second wicket. Khakurel scored 30 runs from 25 balls with 2 fours and six. Airee and Chandra added valuable 50 runs for fourth wicket. Airee scored 27 runs from 34 balls where Chandra scored unbeaten 28 runs from 29 balls. In the end, Attariya just lost 4 wickets but their slow run rate found themselves 16 runs short of target. For United, Chhetri picked up 2 wickets where Karki picked up a wicket.
With this lost, CYC Attariya got knocked out of the competition. Mahendranagar United confirm their meet with Kathmandu Goldens in qualifier 2.
