Nepal plays Afghanistan on Friday in an important fixture of the ICC World T20 Qualifiers at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium in UAE.
A victory to either of the team will strengthen their dreams of makings into the World T20 directly as group B winner while the defeat is likely to take a lengthy route.
Nepal lies in fourth position with six points, the same points as Kenya, but lower position due to low run rate. Similarly, Afghanistan is in second position of the table, having equal eight points along group leader Netherlands.
All the teams in the group have played five matches each and are yet to play two matches in the eight-team group. Afghanistan will take on comparatively stronger side Kenya in its last group match unlike Nepal which will play against comparatively weaker Bermuda in the last match. Similarly, leader Netherlands will lock horns with Scotland and Kenya. Thus the penultimate match looks to be much more important for both the teams in terms of their World Cup dream.
Looking at the past records, Afghanistan holds superiority over Nepal. The two sides have met four times in the short format event and Afghanistan has won all of them. The last time these two sides met was during the ACC T20 final in April in Kathmandu. Then, Nepal was defeated by seven wickets at home ground in Kirtipur. In the last year’s World T20 Qualifiers, Nepal was defeated by 34 runs at the hands of Afghanistan. Coincidentally, the tournament was held at Sharjah, the same venue where Nepal and Afghanistan will meet on Friday.
But there have been lot of changes in Nepali team since the tournament and Nepal has defeated the likes of Kenya and Papua New Guinea, which are considered strong teams, in the tournament.