Two far-western teams began their campaign with defeat at the Springwood National T20 Cricket Tournament on June 4 as Region No 5 Nepalgunj lost to Region No 4 Bhairahawa and Region No 6 Baitadi was beaten by Region No 1 Biratnagar at the TU Ground.
Basant Regmi helped Bhairahawa register a 33-run victory while all-round performance by Ajay Rajbanshi gave Biratnagar a six-wicket victory and sent the eastern team at the top of the table tied with Region No 3 Kathmandu.
At the conclusion of third day of the six-team round-robin league event, Kathmandu and Biratnagar are atop the table with two wins each while Bhairahawa is third with a win from two matches. Region No 2 Birgunj had lost both matches and is without point as Baitadi and Nepalgunj, who played one each.
Baitadi won the toss and elected to bat first. They went well till the fall of Binod Bhandari (19 off 26 balls) at the rate of six runs per over but his fall as the third wicket at 41/3 put pressure on Baitadi batsmen who failed to score freely.
Naresh Budayer (19), Pradeep Airee (18) and Shakti Bhandari (14) got the start but could not carry on as three wickets each from Ajay (3/20), Mehboob Alam (3/22) and Manjeet Shrestha (3/18) ended their innings at 100 with a ball remaining.
Biratnagar’s reply did not start well as hard-hitting Mehboob (7), Vivek Jha (12) and Sunny Pun (1) went out early making it 40/3. But then, 38-run partnership between Pushpa Thapa and Ajay put them ahead.
Pushpa scored 33 of 41 balls – a perfect follow up to his 59 a day earlier and was out when his team needed 23 runs in 38 balls.
Ajay (25 not out off 37 balls) and Manjeet (12 not out off 12 balls) completed the victory in 18.3 overs. For Baitadi, Dhirendra Chand, Chandra Saud and Prem Budal each grabbed a wicket.
Earlier in the morning, Bhairahawa won the toss and elected to bat first. They lost Sagar Pun (3) and Shakti Gauchan (1) early to make it 7/2. However Manoj Vaishya and Basant Regmi rescued the team with 76-run partnership. Manoj scored 20 off 33 while Basant got 52 off 43 with two fours and two sixes.
Late in the innings, Rahul Kumar BK (15 not out off 14) and Antim Thapa (22 not out off 15) took the team to a competitive total of 121/5. For Nepalgunj, Nasir Ansari (2/19) and Sunil Sunar (2/21) were picks of the bowlers.
The task was an uphill one for Nepalgunj as their batsmen struggled to score against disciplined bowling. Opening Mahesh Chhetri (21 off 28), Subendu Pandey (17 off 11) and Tajuddin Halwai (15 off 24) showed some respite but other failed.
Akash Gupta made up his batting failure with three wickets (3/8) while Rahul, Amrit Bhattarai, Lal Bahadur Adhikar and Shakti each picked a wicket.
On June 5, Kathmandu plays Baitadi in the first match while Birgunj takes on Nepalgunj in the second.
Photo by NepalSportsPhoto.com