Biratnagar finishes third on pace day

THE KATMANDU POST

KATHMANDU, April 4 – Region No 1 Biratnagar finished third in the Springwood National League Cricket Tournament after defeating Region No 2 Birgunj by two wickets in the pace dominated low scoring match at the TU Cricket Ground on Friday.

Mehboob Alam took five wickets and Manjeet Shrestha grabbed three as the four-time champions bowled out Birgunj for a paltry 68 runs in 20.5 overs. Binod Das ensured Biratnagar toil hard to achieve the victory by claiming six wickets. Birgunj got a disastrous start losing first eight wickets for only 25 runs in nine overs. It all began when Mehboob bowled Anil Mandal in the fourth ball to become the third player to get 50 wickets in the national league after Raju Basnet and Binod.

Mehboob’s deadly first five overs gave him five wickets and Manjeet got three in his first four overs as Birgunj was put in an embarrassing position of getting bowled for the lowest total in the event’s history. Kumar Prasun saved Birgunj’s blushes, scoring 18 off 36 balls with two fours and most importantly taking his team past 44 – the lowest score in the event. Sameer Thapa got nine and the pair added 36 runs to give the team something to bowl for.

Birgunj too struck early when Pashupati Mandal got out in the third over but Sunny Pun (21) and Puspa Thapa (16) added 37 runs before Birgunj pegged them down. From 43/1, Biratnagar went down to 43/5 in less than two overs – Binod grabbing four of them and Sanjam Regmi picking one.

Binod claimed two more wickets but Mehboob ensured his contribution with bat getting the deserved result with an unbeaten 21 off 30 balls that included three fours. With the performance, Binod took his wickets tally to 59 – five ahead of Mehboob and six of Raju, who still has the Sunday’s final to play.

At the Institute of Engineering Ground, the rehearsal of the title-clash between Region No 3 Kathmandu and Region No 4 Bhairahawa was abandoned due to rainfall after a farcical event that saw the match stopped for more than 100 minutes.

Bhairahawa won the toss and invited Kathmandu to bat first. Paresh Lohani followed his two half-centuries with 11 and Sharad Veswakar got 5 before Dipendra Chaudhary complained about the lack of the sight screen and Kathmandu decided to stop the match.

Dipendra complained that as the ball got older it looked like the wall on the background. “When we last played here, we told Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN), we can not play without the screen,” captain Paresh Lohani said. The match originally scheduled for Lab Ground was shifted in the last minute.

The match was resumed after 102 minutes when the technical committee and two teams talked the matters and reduced the match to 45-overs affair. Kathmandu lost Dipendra immediately and Gyanendra Malla played an aggressive knock of 31 hitting two fours and two sixes.

Raju Basnet got 28 in 27 balls to take the team to 143/8 in 45 overs. Basant Regmi got out in the first ball of the innings for the second time in a row as he was trapped in front by Abhaya Rana. Manoj Baishya (10) and Amit Shrestha (1) fell to Pramod Basnet, who scored 32 in 122 balls as opener earlier, as Bhairahawa went down to 27/3 in 10 overs.

The match was stopped by rain in the 15th over with Shakti Gauchan (3) and Antim Thapa (13) at the crease.

Springwood National League Cricket

Points Table

Region                                             Matches          Win         Lost           NR             Pts             NRR

Region No. 4 Bhairawa                        5                   4              0               1              13            +3.02

Region No. 3 Kathmandu                     5                   4              0               1              13            +2.19

Region No. 1 Biratnagar                      5                   3              2                0               9            +0.71

Region No. 2 Birgunj                           5                   2              3                0               6            -0.42

Region No. 6 Baitadi                            5                   1              4                0               3            -2.34

Region No. 5 Nepalgunj                        5                   0               5                0               0           -2.71