Region No 1 Biratnagar registered their second consecutive victory in the Pepsi T20 Men´s National League Cricket Tournament stunning defending champions Region No 3 Kathmandu by four runs at the IOE Ground.
Biratnagar, batting first, put up 113 runs losing seven wickets and restricted Kathmandu to 109/9 in a last-over thriller.
Biratnagar lost early wickets but Pushpa Thapa and Ajay Rajbanshi anchored the innings with a 62-run third wicket partnership. Thapa scored 29 runs while Rajbanshi struck 32 off 38 balls. Paras Khadka, Sunam Gautam and Dipendra Chaudhary took two wickets each.
Chasing the small total, Kathmandu could not begin well as man-of-the-match Manjeet Shrestha (4/13) took three wickets very early. Kathmandu lost the three wickets at the score of 12.
Captain Paras Khadka (31 runs off 31 balls), Gyanendra Malla (18 off 33 balls) and Sunam Gautam (21 off 24 balls) tried to anchor the innings but could not stop losing wickets in regular intervals.
Kathmandu were in need of 11 runs from the last over. Gautam hit a six in the first ball of Ajay Rajbanshi, but could not hold his nerve and was caught by Mehboob Alam at short fine-leg in the fourth ball.
In another match of the day, Region No 2 Birgunj defeated Region No 5 Nepalgunj by four wickets.
Batting first, Nepalgunj were all out for 81 runs in 16.2 overs. Raj Mohammad, Binod Das, Rahul Pratap Singh and Sanjam Regmi claimed two wickets each to limit Nepalgunj to a low score. Sandeep Shrestha (15 runs) was the highest contributor for Nepalgunj.
In the run chase, Birgunj also could not bat well and lost four wickets for 27 runs. Binod Das remained unbeaten on 32 runs off 22 balls that included four sixes to anchor the Birgunj innings and guided them to victory in 17.5 overs. Das was adjudged man-of-the-match.