Nepal failed to restrict United Arab Emirates below 184 in Kallang of Singapore today thus allowing the defending champion to lift the trophy for the second time.
UAE won the final clash by six wickets to deny the first time finalist Nepal from taking revenge of league clash which they won by six wickets. It was a perfect tournament for UAE who won all the six matches it played while Nepal lost two of six. Nepal has qualified for Asia Cup that also features Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, which has been the greatest success for Nepal.
It was second consecutive defeat in final for Nepal in the same year. earlier Nepal lost to Zimbabwe in plate final of Youth World Cup.
Nepal selected to bat after winning the toss for the sixth time this morning only to witness the early damage. Nepal lost opener Mehboob Alam and Bardan Chalise within nine runs. Dipendra Chaudhary (10) also could not stay longer at the crease but added 32 with other opener Paresh Lohani.
Paresh, who is regarded as good opening batsman, left behind his failure international career and come up with the first fifty in the 12th innings. Earlier his tally was 116 runs from 11 innings he played for the country. He made 52 off 79 balls hitting nine boundaries.
Although Paresh got the half century, Nepal failed to accelerate run rate due to the earlier damage and were 84/4 after completion of 25th overs.
Tournament hero Shakti Gauchan came up with another good innings to compensate the early loss. Shakti on his way to score 47 off 103 balls become the highest international run scorers for Nepal taking his total runs to 268. Before Pawan Agrawal and Ganesh Shahi were tied at 226. Dipendra is now at the second number with 232 in 12 innings. Shakti is playing his debut senior tournamnet.
Paras Luniya and captain Raju Khadka tried to accelerate the run rate but both get out at 19 each. Sanjam Regmi scored 10.
In reply, UAE got the flying start scoring around five runs per over despite loosing some wickets early. Asim Saeed take the charge of scoring quick and made 41 before returning to players’ box. With good foundation already constructed, captain Khurram Khan played steadily to steer his team to the victory.
Khan was unbeaten at 60 when the innings ended with a big reward for them. Atif Ali and Arshad Ali scored 34 and 21 respectively to support their captain.
For Nepal, Binod Das was the most successful taking two wickets for 16 runs. Paras Luniya and Raj Kumar Pradhan took one wicket each.
(With inputs from Dinesh Thapa ‘JOY’ from Singapore. Joy is the webmaster of http://e-saathi.com and also watched the final in Kallang.)