Scoring a century in a cricket match is itself a milestone for the batter. As women’s cricket started in Nepal only in 2005, century was a distant dream for Nepali woman cricketers till Friday.
However, Nary Thapa, who is one of the first generation woman-cricketers in the country, achieved the milestone on Friday with style.
Region No 5 (Nepalgunj) captain Thapa scored an unbeaten century against Region No 3 (Kathmandu) on Friday at the TU Cricket Ground, Kirtipur in the ongoing Women’s National Cricket Tournament.
Thapa garnered 121 runs off 128 balls for the maiden century of Nepali women’s cricket. She struck 21 boundaries in the process.
Thapa, who reached half-century mark off 52 balls, reached the magical three-digit figure off 109 balls.
Thapa is the first Nepali woman cricketer to score first international half-century. She had scored 66 runs against the UAE in the ACC U-19 Women’s Championship 2010 in Singapore. She had struck a six against Hong Kong in the same tournament to become the first Nepali woman cricketer to strike six.
Riding on the century scored by player-of-the-match Thapa, Nepalgunj sealed a huge 115-run victory over Kathmandu in the match.
Nepalgunj put up 205/2 in allotted 40 overs. Trishna Singh scored unbeaten 33 runs off 61 balls for Nepalgunj.
On the other hand, Nepalgunj bowler Samana Pun achieved another milestone. She took five wickets to bundle out Kathmandu at 90 runs in 29.4 overs. Samjhana Sharma claimed two wickets while Trishna Singh, Anu KC and RekhaBC dismissed a batter each.
Sandhya KC (34 runs off 56 balls) and Rubina Bisunkhe (12 runs off 16 balls) were the top scorers for Kathmandu.
Meanwhile, Region No 4 (Bhairahawa) beat Region No 2 (Birgunj) by 42 runs on Friday at the Army Cricket Ground, Bhaktapur.
Bhairahawa elected to bat and was all out for 135 runs in 31.2 overs. Saraswoti Pun was the top scorer for Bhairahawa with 45 runs off 63 balls while Nitu Bhandari garnered 14 runs off 20 balls. Birgunj gave away 37 runs as extras. Pushpa Aryal, Subhadra Adhikari and Sita Shrestha claimed two wickets each.
Chasing the modest total, Birgunj was all out for 93 runs in 21.3 overs as player-of-the-match Barsa Rana took four wickets for Bhairahawa. Indu Berma claimed three wickets while Shaiya Gurung took two wickets. Alish KC claimed a wicket. Sita Shrestha (26 runs) and Rachana Aryal (12 runs) were the major contributors for Birgunj.