Region No 6 Baitadi surrendered meekly to Region No 3 Kathmandu who, inspired by spinner Raj Shrestha, registered the second win in the Birendra Memorial National League cricket tournament here at the TU Cricket Ground today.
Kathmandu raced to the lowly target in 20.4 overs losing just one wicket after Raj’s six-wicket haul ended Baitadi innings at 129 in 37.4 overs. With the nine-wicket win, Kathmandu claimed all six possible points from their two matches as they also defeated Region No 2 Birgunj in the opening match.
For Kathmandu, captain Paresh Lohani remained unbeaten on 59 scored off 60 balls with 11 fours while Sarad Vesawkar was in a mood to end the match quickly and hit 46 runs in 33 balls with six fours and two sixes – each off Sameer Chand and Mahesh Poudel. Rikesh Lama was the only one to return after giving a catch to Prem Chaudhary off Dhirendra Chand. He scored 15 and added 41 with Paresh for the first wicket.
Earlier, Baitadi won the toss and elected to bat first but failed to repeat the impressive performance as on Thursday when they unluckily missed the victory over Birgunj. They lost the opener Deepak Budal in the sixth over but resisted Kathmandu attack then after, until spinners came into operation.
They top-order batsmen failed to covert the good start into long innings as Deepak Malla (21), Dhan Bahadur Chhetri (35) and Prem Chaudhary (12) got out after firmly setting themselves at the center. Raj was the chief destruction, who returned with the third-best bowling performance in the tournament history. Only Ritesh Baral (7/14) and Narayan Patel (7/27) have bowled better than him.
Baitadi lost last eight wickets for only 44 runs as Raj and two run-outs hold them aback. Captain Dhirendra Chand hit 25 with two fours and a six but ran out of partners.