Amrit Bhattarai proved he is more than a pacer when he batted Nepal to a 137-run victory over Saudi Arabia in the opening match of the ACC U-19 Elite Cup 2009 in Kuwait on Wednesday.
Four-time defending champions Nepal was struggling 76/7 in 20 overs before No 9 Amrit rescued Nepal with stunning 82 runs.
Nepal elected to bat first and despite losing top order batsmen early scored 233 in 49 overs.
Amrit played 93 balls and hit nine fours and two sixes in his knock before being the fifth victim of Saudi captain Waqas Khalid.
Waqas and his new ball partner Mohammad Abdullah took early four wickets as Nepal wentdown to 40/4 despite captain Gyanendra Malla’s 20.
Saim Rushdi then claimed two more wickets and Waqas added one more to make it 76/7 before Nepal got back into match.
Rom Shrestha contributed 32 in 64 balls with two fours while No 10 Chandra Sawad hit brisk 28 off 27 balls with three boundaries as Nepal raced to a formidable total.
Waqas returned with 5/35 while Said claimed 3/69 and Abdullah took two for 54.
In reply, Saudi Arabia, promoted last year to elite division, were bundled out for 96 runs in 38.3 overs.
Although, Amrit and Chandra failed to give breakthrough they bowled tight giving away only 14 runs off their 10 overs.
Lal Bahadur Adhikari gave the breakthrough claiming both openers while Sagar Khadka and Anil Mandal also took two each.
Gyanendra and Prithu Baskota returned with a wicket each as Saudi failed to bat well.
Opener Ali Zaman topscored with 20 while Abdul Salam got 19.