The first high profile match of the Springwood National League Cricket turned out to be a lopsided match as four-time champions Region No 1 Biratnagar failed to live up the expectations and suffered a nine-wicket thrashing by defending champions Region No 4 Bhairahawa.
Biratnagar were 21/5 in the eighth over – Faizal Khan and Amrit Bhattarai being the destroyers, and never really recovered in their innings of 75 runs in 35 overs. Bhairahawa needed just 15 overs to record the easy win.
Basant Regmi and Manoj Vaishya added 54 runs before Puspa Thapa trapped Manoj on 21. Amit Shrestha came in and hit brisk 13 off 16 balls and partnering Basant till the end. Basant was unbeaten on 32 off 40 deliveries with four boundaries and a six.
The match ended after Ajay Rajbanshi bowled two wides – an indication on how badly the easterners played on the day.
Earlier, Faizal and Amrit combined for a deadly pace bowling that decided the match. Biratnagar’s decision to bat first misfired as the opening duo claimed top five wickets in no time. Faizal got Sunil Bista (0), Puspa Thapa (0) and Ajay Rajbanshi (1) while left-arm pacer Amrit removed Laxman Shrestha (0) and most prolific cricketer of Nepal, Mehboob Alam (2) to wreck the innings.
They bowled with such domination that even hard-hitting Mehboob, who had scored 37 off 14 balls on Friday, could only produce two runs off 10 balls.
Yashwant Subedi, playing in middle-order, then tried to stabilized the innings with 35-run partnership with Manjeet Shrestha but once he was trapped lbw by left-arm Shakti Gauchan, the rest put no fight to the spinners.
Yashwant scored 32 off 57 balls with four boundaries and was out when his team had 56. Two runs later, Manjeet (8) misread off-spinner Rahul BK. The second best partnership of the innings was for the last wicket, between Santosh Baral and captain Manoj Katuwal (4 off 29) that added nine runs. Santosh (7) was bowled by Amrit to end the innings.
Amrit and man-of-the-match Faizal each took three while Rahul got two and Shakti shared the remaining two with Basant.
| Biratnagar Vs Bhairahawa |
| Played At Tribhuvan University Ground, Kirtipur, 29-Mar-2008, One-Day National League |
| Bhairahawa Win by 9 wkts |
| Round | League |
| Toss won by | Biratnagar |
| Umpires | Himal Raj Giri & Biswo Sagar Pokherel |
| Scorers | Raman Siwakoti |
| Player / Match | RN4:Khan, Faisal |
| Points Awarded | Biratnagar 0, Bhairahawa 3 |
| Biratnagar Innings 75 All Out (Overs 35.1) |
| Batsman | Fieldsman | Bowler | Runs | Bls | 4s | 6s |
| S Bista | lbw | b F Khan | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| M Alam | b A Bhattarai | 2 | 10 | 0 | 0 | |
| L Shrestha | b A Bhattarai | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | |
| Y Subedi | lbw | b S Gauchan | 32 | 57 | 4 | 0 |
| P Thapa | c S Gauchan | b F Khan | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| A Rajbanshi | lbw | b F Khan | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| M Shrestha | b R BK | 8 | 40 | 1 | 0 | |
| R Khadgi | b R BK | 3 | 17 | 0 | 0 | |
| Manoj Katuwal*+not out | 4 | 29 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Ayush Shrestha c Bijaya Thapab B Regmi | 4 | 9 | 0 | 0 | ||
| S Baral | b A Bhattarai | 7 | 27 | 0 | 0 | |
| extras | (b4 lb2 w7 nb1) | 14 | ||||
| TOTAL | 10 wickets for | 75 | ||||
| FOW |
| 1-2(S Bista) 2-3(L Shrestha) 3-10(M Alam) 4-13(P Thapa) 5-21(A Rajbanshi)6-56(Y Subedi) 7-58(M Shrestha) 8-61(R Khadgi) 9-66(Ayush Shrestha) 10-75(S Baral) |
| Bowler | O | M | R | W | wd | nb |
| A Bhattarai | 5.1 | 1 | 18 | 3 | 4 | – |
| F Khan | 6 | 0 | 10 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| S Gauchan | 6 | 4 | 3 | 1 | – | – |
| B Regmi | 7 | 2 | 13 | 1 | – | – |
| Bijaya Thapa | 3 | 0 | 15 | 0 | – | – |
| R BK | 8 | 0 | 10 | 2 | – | – |
| Bhairahawa Innings 76/1 (Overs 15) |
| Batsman | Fieldsman | Bowler | Runs | Bls | 4s | 6s |
| B Regmi | not out | 32 | 40 | 4 | 1 | |
| M Vhaishya+ | lbw | b P Thapa | 21 | 34 | 3 | 0 |
| Amit Shrestha | not out | 13 | 16 | 1 | 0 | |
| extras | (b0 lb1 w9 nb0) | 10 | ||||
| TOTAL | 1 wickets for | 76 |
| FOW |
| 1-54(M Vhaishya) |
| Bowler | O | M | R | W | wd | nb |
| M Alam | 4 | 0 | 21 | 0 | 3 | – |
| M Shrestha | 5 | 0 | 29 | 0 | 4 | – |
| P Thapa | 4 | 1 | 19 | 1 | – | – |
| Ayush Shrestha | 2 | 1 | 4 | 0 | – | – |
| A Rajbanshi | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | – |