E-Kantipur

KATHMANDU, DEC 05 -

Nepal suffered a loss against United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the home soil by four wickets in the ACC Twenty20 Cup cricket tournament at the TU Cricket Ground on Sunday.

Nepal could not continue their winning streak against UAE as they were limited to 95/9 within 20 overs, which was attained by UAE in the 18.3 over for the easy victory. The match was halted for about 10 minutes due to the infuriated crowd who rained in stones and bottles in the 18th over as they could not comply with the lame performance and mistakes committed by their team.

Nepal won the toss and opted to bat first. Nepali batsmen could not conquer the field as their bat could not find the answer to the overpowering bowling attack of UAE. Mehboob Alam (17), opener Suvash Khakurel (14), Binod Bhandari (14) and Prithu Baskota (10) were the only batsmen to score double-digit for their team.

Ahmed Raza led the UAE bowling claiming three wickets for 12 runs. His wickets included immense figures of captain Paras Khadka and Sharad Vesawkar. Shadeep Silva and Rohan Mustafa claimed a couple of wickets each.

Anil Mandal (5) was run out by Shaiman Anwar in the third over, Gyanendra Malla had to return to the pavilion without scoring a single run and captain Paras Khadka (2) could not continue his match winning performance as he was caught by Irfan Ahmed in the 7th over.

Nepal was in deep trouble as they could post only 37 runs by the end of 8th over with four wickets down. Mehboob Alam’s bat provided some respite as he struck 17 in nine balls, including a six. His begetting runs motive was brought to an end by Mustafa when he uprooted Alam’s wicket in the 12th over. Basanta Regmi could only contribute a run when he was caught by Abdul Rehman in the last over.

In reply, UAE batsmen were calm as they adhered to their aspiration and were victorious with nine balls remaining. Faizan Asif, who scored 13 runs escaped narrowly from the hands of Sarad Vesawkar as he could not cage the flying ball of Asif’s bat.

Nepal found the first breakthrough in the third over when Sanjam Regmi’s contained the flying ball off Amjad Ali’s bat.

Captain Paras Khadka made sure of the Faizan Asif’s days over at the crease when he caught him at 13 in seventh over. Shaiman Anwar’s run-a-ball 33 runs contribution and Abdul Rehman’s 19 run helped visitors to emerge

victorious. Their only moment of panicking came when they lost two wickets in two balls at 65 to Amrit Bhattarai, who finished with 3 for 25. Ahmed Raza walked away with man of the match. Captain Paras Khadka seemed dismayed by his team’s performance and reaction of the home audience. “Though we bowled satisfactorily but could not achieve worthy with batting, our fielding was porous but that is all the part of the game, we will bounce back in the upcoming game,” he said.

When asked about the behaviour of audience, he commented that it was a shameful act, which could make impossible to organise any international tournaments in home ground. Nepal coach Pubudu Dassanayake said that the loss borne was due to the poor performance but that was not the end of the road.

“We could not handle any department of the game, we could not afford to drop catches and we need to improve our fielding in the coming matches, nevertheless there is still strong hope in getting results in coming matches,”

he said.

Likewise, in another match, the Maldives defeated Bhutan by nine wickets. Chasing a mere

target of 78 Maldives cruised to victory in the 13th over. In yet another match, Kuwait defeated Saudi Arabia by six wickets with 39 balls to spare.

Posted on: 2011-12-05 08:54

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