Sports»
Batting collapse puts Nepal at back-foot
KATHMANDU, JAN 20 - A familiar batting collapse foiled Sarad Vesawkar’s praiseworthy knock and spinners’ effort as India beat Nepal by 70 runs in the super-league round of the U-17 Asia Cup at KSCA, Bangalore today.
Nepali spinners restricted India to 198/8 in allotted 45 overs after the hosts got a good start. In reply, Nepal could manage only 128 in 41.2 overs as they lost last 7 wickets for mere 16 runs thus allowing India to take a bonus point.
Nepal’s chase to a formidable total suffered a huge setback in the first over as opener Mahesh Chhettri gave a catch to Ravi Kanth Sukla off Jagrut Mehta on the fourth ball of the innings. Nine overs later Pawan Das went after scoring 6 runs. He was caught behind off the same bowler.
The other opener Sarad, who scored three runs of the first ball of the innings, however, played a memorable knock. He was unfortunate to fall one run short of a deserving half-century. Sarad played 90 balls and hit 6 boundaries and stayed till the 35th over.
Sarad started aggressively but slowed down seeing his teammates going back quickly. With his aggressiveness, Nepal scored 45 runs in 9.4 overs and partnered 42 runs with Pawan and 39 runs with his captain Paras Khadka. Parad scored 19 off 50 balls with two boundaries before being a victim of run out.
Sunil Bista was the only other batsman to get two-digit mark with 16 runs off 30 balls before Ali Murtaza’s ball went to wicketkeeper after touching his bat. When Sunil got out, Nepal was 112/5 in 33.1 overs. Nine balls later Sarad returned as the Indian bowlers took the charge to send Nepal packing for 128.
Piyush Chawla was the most successful bowler with 3 wickets while pacer Jagrut Mehta and Shabaz Nadeem took two each.
Earlier, Indian openers Uday Kaul and Ali Murtaza gave their team a dream start adding 90 runs in 21.2 overs. Ali went first, caught by Sunil off spinner Raj Shrestha, for 50 in 69 balls. Paras got Raviraj Patel quickly to make it 93/2 before Raj returned to oust another opener Uday for 35.
Spinners did well to wreck Indian middle-order until captain AG Pradeep rescued the team. India went down to 118/5 but Pradeep aggressive batting took them to a good total. Pradeep remained unbeaten on 52 off 67 balls with 4 fours and got good support from No 9 Shabaz Nadeem (15) and No 10 Umesh Karvi (11*).
Raj returned with a splendid spell of 2 for 15 off 9 overs while Paras, Irfan and Angel Acharya each took 2 wickets. Nepal will play against Pakistan on Tuesday and a defeat in it would most probably end hopes of reaching semifinal.Posted on: 2004-01-21 03:18
Headlines
Advertisements
