Region No 2 Birgunj stunned Region No 1 Biratnagar in the opening match of the Boost Under-16 National League Cricket Tournament as Region No 4 Bhairahawa beat Region No 6 Baitadi.
In a match played at the IOE Ground, Birgunj defeated Biratnagar by 3 wickets while Bhairahawa won by 44 runs at the TU Cricket Ground.
Early blow put Biratnagar on the backfoot after they won the toss and elected to bat first. Two run outs and a brilliant bolwing by Birgunj captain Avinash Karn put the Eastern side at 7/4 in 2.4 overs and they did not recover good from then onwards.
Opener Shailendra Ram stayed for 16 overs scoring 28 off 46 balls with five boundaries while also witnessing the come-and-go of six of this teammates – who scored nine runs in aggregrate. In an innings that saw six batsmen returning without scoring, Bhawendra Magar (10 not out) was only other batsman to score double-digit.
Overall, they were bowled out for 60 in 19.1 overs with Avinash finishing at 3/11 and Rajeev Kumar Shah and Mustakim Miya taking two wickes each. Athar Ali also grabbed a wicket.
Biratnagar captain and seamer matched, or even bowled better than counterpart, to put Birgunj in similar trouble at 9/3 in 6.4 overs but Birgunj managed to escape more trouble by a few runs here and there and extras.
Man of the match Avinash scored 12 off 32 balls and Madhav Subedi 13 not out off 35 balls as they reached the target in 25 overs with three wickets remaining. Hari finished with 4/12 while Lilan Kharel, Mahboob Babu Iraqui and Sumit Chandra Dev each took a wicket for Biratnagar.
At TU, Bhairahawa chose to bat and scored 128 in 33.1 overs before bowling out Baitadi for 84 in 31.1 overs.
Bhairahawa got most of the runs from extras – 36 – and four of its batsmen Kasam Thapa (24), Prakash KC (22), Swichan Shah (15) and Sushan Bari (15).
Pick of the Baitadi’s bowlers was Sameer Nagarkoti who picked up 3/17 while Arjun Chapagain (2/18) and Jadish Chand (2/10) were also on their mark.
Tapendra Saud proved to the long fighter in the Baitadui’s reply scoring 37 off 82 balls before being out as the last man. Seamer Devendra Somare put Baitadi in trouble by early three wickets as Baitadi went down to 23/4 in 7.5 overs.
Man of the match Devendra finished at 3/13 while Bibek Chaudhary took 2/7.