Nepal APF Club, Region No 5 (Nepalgunj) and Region No 3 (Kathmandu) registered consecutive second victory on Friday in the Pepsi Standard Chartered T20 National Cricket Tournament.
APF, which defeated Region No 8 (Pokhara) on Thursday in the first match, thrashed Region No 2 (Birgunj) by 76 runs on Friday at the Pulchowk Engineering College Ground, Lalitpur. APF elected to bat first and put up 148/5 in allotted 20 overs as Sharad Vesawkar scored unbeaten 32 runs while Basant Regmi added unbeaten 26. Subash Khakurel blasted 29 runs off 15 balls and Gyanendra Malla scored 24 runs. Binod Das took two wickets for Birgunj while Arif Seikh, Ram Naresh Giri and Irshad Ahamed claimed a wicket each.
In reply, Birgunj reached only 72/8 in 20 overs. Amit Shrestha (26 runs) and Bikram Basnet (20 runs) were the only batsmen to produce double-digit scores for Birgunj. Paras Khadka, Bhuban Karki, Basant Regmi and Shakti Gauchan claimed two wickets each. Regmi was adjudged man-of-the-match for his all-round performance.
Likewise, Nepalgunj edged past Region No 1 (Biratnagar) by six wickets at Pulchowk to register second victory in the tournament. Nepalgunj had defeated Region No 7 (Janakpur) on Thursday.
Biratnagar elected to bat first and put up 118/8 in 20 overs as Sunny Pun scored 36 runs off 40 balls. The second highest contribution in Biratnagar’s total was from 23 extras bowled by Nepalgunj. Nasir Ansari, Nijamuddin Halwahi and Amar Singh Rautela claimed two wickets each while Aakash Bista took a wicket.
Nepalgunj reached the target losing only four wickets as man-of-the-match Mahesh Chhetri garnered 56 runs off 54 balls. Anupam Singh added 38 runs off 40 balls. Mehaboob Alam took two wickets while Manoj Mandal and Manjeet Shrestha dismissed a batsman each.
Following the results, APF and Nepalgunj both have four points each in the group B of the tournament while Birgunj and Pokhara have two points each.
Pokhara defeated Janakpur by 50 runs to collect important two points on the table. Pokhara elected to bat first at the TU Cricket Ground, Kirtipur and put up 186/4 in 20 overs. Man-of-the-match Dipesh Khatri clobbered unbeaten 50 runs off 21 balls while opener Santosh Gurung scored 46 runs off 40 balls. Amrit Shrestha (33 runs) and Anil Gurung (23 runs) were the other major contributors for Pokhara. Sanjog Karn, Raj Mohammed and Abhishek Jha claimed a wicket each.
Chasing the good total, Janakpur reached only at 136/9. Jha hit 39 runs off 25 balls while Mohammed added 38 runs for Janakpur. Dipesh Shrestha, Nischal Pandey, Sushil Kandel and Krishna Bastola took two wickets each to restrict Janakpur while Shiva Shrestha claimed a wicket.
Meanwhile, Kathmandu registered a 42-runs victory over Region No 9 (Mahendranagar) at the TU Ground on Friday. Kathmandu elected to bat and put up 148/7 in 20 overs as man-of-the-match Bivatsu Thapa scored 40 runs and Niraj Bhattarai remained unbeaten with 33 runs off 15 balls. Lalit Bhandari, Binod Khatri and Sagar Joshi took two wickets each while Ravi Bhatta claimed a wicket for Mahendranagar, the newly formed cricketing region that debuted in the domestic tournament from the match.
In the run chase, Mahendranagar reached only 106/5. Dipendra Aire (32 runs) and Surendra Chand (unbeaten 25 runs) were the top contributors for Mahendranagar. Prakash Bista, Som Pal Thapa, Niraj Basnet and Anil Karki dismissed a batsman each.
Kathmandu, which had defeated Region No 4 (Bhairahawa) on Thursday, has four points from two matches in the group A after winning second match on Friday.