Nepal surpassed Sri Lanka Army Cricket Club by 67 runs to start a preparatory camp on winning note.
Nepal in-stand skipper Gyanendra Malla won the toss and asked Lankan Army Cricket Club to field first. Nepal rested their regular skipper Paras Khadka, Sagar Pun and Karan KC for this match. Gyanendra Malla himself along with veteran opening batsman, Subash Khakurel came out to open the innings for Nepal. Khakurel (10) yet again failed to score big as Nepal lost first wicket on 7th over of the innings. Anil Kumar Sah (00), who batted at no.3, just hold on for three more deliveries as Nepal lost two wickets successively on same over. Malla got the required start but he failed to capitalize on it and lost his wicket on the personal score of 21 runs, taking 26 balls. Airee (00) also followed Malla and got out on very next over as Nepal was reduced to 42/4 within 10 overs of first power play. Rohit Kumar Paudel (12) hung for while but couldn’t contribute big enough. Aarif Sheikh and Binod Bhandari (16) shared valuable 33 runs for 6th wicket. Then, Sheikh played beautifully with tail anders to propel Nepal score to 194 runs before getting all out inside 49th over. He smashed maximum 89 runs off 118 balls. He missed his well deserved century by 11 runs but his innings worth much more than that.
Chasing the target, Lankan Army Cricket Club was helpless against Nepal tough bowling attack. They only added 127 runs, losing all their wickets inside 37th over. Nepal fast bowling spearhead, Sompal Kami and very experienced spin bowler, Basant Regmi picked up 3 wickets each. Kami destroyed Army’s top order whereas Regmi clean out their lower order. Dipendra Airee also picked up 2 wickets. Likewise, Lalit Bhandari and Lalit Rajbanshi added a wicket each in their tally.
Nepal victory was summed up by yet another disciplined bowling and match winning batting display from young Aarif Sheikh, who is ‘D’ grade contracted player of Nepal. Very much to cheer for Himalayan nation as they stole victory from right under the nose of Lankan Army Cricket Team. Earlier, their globe representative, Sandeep Lamichhane, bowled brilliantly and picked up very big wicket of Australian star, David Warner.
