Sarad Vesawkar and Mehboob Alam scored half-centuries to rescue Nepal from a dismal batting performance as the hosts dominated the first day of the three-day ACC Premier League match against Hong Kong at the TU Cricket Ground.
Half-centuries of Mehboob Alam and Sarad Vesawkar helped Nepal post 217/8d.
Sarad scored 79 after Mehboob got 61 as Nepal declared their first innings at 217/8 in 78 overs. Apart from these two, the other six batsmen scored a total of 66 between them as Nepal got 21 extra runs. At the end of the day, however, the bowlers put Nepal on top reducing the visitors to 74/7.
At the stumps, Najeeb Amar was playing at 8 while Afzaal Haider scored 14 runs of the last over of the day bowled by leg-spinner Raj Kumar Pradhan to save his team from possible follow-on. Hong Kong needed 68 runs to avoid follow-on.
Hong Kong started cautiously despite losing the opener Imran Idrees early. Binod bowled him out in the fourth over. It was nearly half-an-hour later, when Hong Kong were pegged back by three quick-wickets on 28 that reduced them from 28/1 to 28/4 in 11.2 overs. Two were run out – one each with splendid efforts from Sanjam Regmi and Raj Kumar while Binod added one more. It was Binod’s 49th wicket in the three-day matches.
Vice-captain Paras Khadka, off-spinner Sanjam Regmi and Raj Kumar each took a wicket later denying Hong Kong batsmen of any adventures on the spin-friendly wicket. “We dominate the first day,†Nepal’s coach Roy Dias commented. “Sarad and Mehboob did well with bat but I am disappointed with the last over.â€Â
Struggling Afzaal Haider bowls a delivery. The pacer, with 17 wickets in two matches against Nepal, went wicketless.
Earlier, Hong Kong won the toss and invited Nepal to bat first. Paresh Lohani and Mahesh Chhetri started slow on the wicket that had inconsistent bounce. Both were out in the space of four balls as Nepal went down to 37/2.
It was then Mehboob and Sarad who played cautiously denying the effective left-arm spinners further damages. The two partnered 89 runs before Mehboob failed to read a Nadeem Ahmed delivery and was clean bowled. He scored 61 runs off 100 balls including six fours and three sixes. He was dropped twice – by Idrees at mid-off at 46 and by Ilyas Gul who injured his hand trying to grab the hard-hit shot off his own bowling at 51. It was Mehboob’s first fifty in the three-day matches to add to a century.
Sarad who was slow early got to his rhythm after Mehboob’s dismissal and raced to his half-century in the chance-less knock. For his fourth half-century, he played 132 balls and was out after missing a Ahmed’s delivery for 79. His innings included 163 balls, 8 fours and a six. He was the last batsman out for Nepal but in between saw Nepal losing five wickets with batsmen not contributing much. Paras scored 15 and stayed for 36-run sixth-wicket partnership with him while Basant Regmi (8) partnered 42 runs.
Nadeem Ahmed spearheaded the Hong Kong bowling taking 5/67 in his 23 overs while Najeeb Amar took 2/35. At the end of the day, Nepal netted 7.5 points from the game while Hong Kong earned 5.