Nepal entered the final of the ACC U-16 Elite Cup defeating Malaysia by 32 runs at the TU Ground.
For a change, Dipendra Chand was named man of the match for scoring 43 to help Nepal reach 162 in 39.5 overs after electing to bat first. Bibek Chaudhary and Rajiv Shah each grabbed three wickets to bowl out Malaysia for 130 in 38.1 overs.
Nepal will now meet Singapore in March 16’s final at the TU Ground. Singapore beat Hong Kong by 133 runs at the IOE Ground to march into final.
Nepal won the toss and elected to bat first in the live-telecast match.
Sharad Khadka and Nischal Pandey played patiently scoring 33/0 in 10 overs to give Nepal a foundation to work on. Nischal, who was man of the match in earlier three matches, was caught on 14 off 26 balls off Md Fetri Sham.
Captain Swichan Shah failed in fourth successive match following his two ducks with six runs off 20 balls. He was first of three victims of Syahadat Ramli, who earlied had toured Nepal with the U-17 team.
Ramli also grabbed Sharad’s wicket making it 54/3 in 20 overs and Nepal seemed to be in a trouble. Sharad got 23 off 60 balls.
Dipendra Chand during his 44. Photo by Asian Cricket Council.
When he was out in 36th over, Nepal was 138/6 and a few small contributions, notably unbeaten 11 from Rajiv, seven by Susan Shrestha and eight by Hari Chaulagain took Nepal to a defendable total.
Ramli finished at 3/25 while Sham returned with 2/28.
Malaysia’s reply began well with Razlan Zalati and Amerul Hussain adding 27 in eight overs. Though they were trailing on run-rate from early on, they put Nepali bowlers under pressure until a few overs towards the end.
Nischal looked like replicating his two five-wickets hauls when he gave breakthrough taking bowling out Zalati but Bibek made it his show taking next three wickets – Ramli (7), Hussain (20) and Sham (12).
At the end of 33 overs, they were 107/5 needing 56 off last seven overs – a difficult task but could have been completed with someone getting quick 20s. There were none though.
Devendra Somare grabbed two wickets in 34th over – that of Tharmaraj Mohan (17) and Azlan Idris (16) breaking their 33-run stand and turning the match in Nepal’s way.
Rajiv cleaned up the tail taking three wickets in his seven balls after going wicketless in his first three overs to end Malaysia’s innings 32 runs short of Nepal’s total.
Malaysia now meets Hong Kong for the third-place playoff at BSAM Ground on Monday.
SINGAPORE THRASH HONG KONG
The other semifinal was totally opposite and it brought a lopsided victory for Singapore at IOE Ground. The only setback Singapore suffered was on the first over when they lost Ishaan Shekhar after electing to bat first.
Keshav Seshadri and Vikas Rajgopala added 72 runs in 14 overs to give Singapore a dream start with scoreboard reading 75/1. Seshadri was stumped at 37 off 45 balls, a knock consisting of seven fours.
Rajgopala scored 68 off 92 balls with seven fours as Singapore utilised the foundation to play aggressively and got a very good total of 230/9.
Amandeep Singh was pick of Hong Kong player who got 3/49.
Hong Kong lost the openers early in score of 14 – thanks to Shekhar who picked up both wickets. Kinchit Shah (23) and Miten Khatri (15) tried the recovery with 48-run partnership with a chuck of runs coming from extras but introduction of Shivan Ahuja and Saisrikar Pogaru undid the Hong Kong soon after.
Amandeep (13) got a few runs while four others were out without scoring as Ahuja took three wickets and Pogaru two to conclude the innings at 97 in 30.1 overs.
KUWAIT SECURES SEVENTH POSITION
At BSAM, Kuwait registered the first win and secured seventh position defeating Thailand by 68 runs.
Batting first, Kuwait scored 159/7 in 40 overw wiht Nasir Rashid getting 63 off 122 balls. Abdul Jabar contributed 31 off 48 while Zakari Ali (11) and Avinash Mohan (12) contributed a few runs for their cause.
Mukesh Saraik was the pick of the bowlers taking 2/27. Aman Dubey, Kushal Shah, Siddhant Anand and Witsanukorn Tapimithai each picked up a wicket for Thailand.
Rashid bowled the tournament best figure of 6/29 as Thailand batting tumbled and ended at 90 off 21.4 overs. Jabar grabbed 3/23 while Mohan took a remaining wicket.