Baitadi, Birgunj win

Kohalpur/Birgunj, June 4:

Region No 6 (Baitadi) registered a 171-run win over Region No 5 (Nepalgunj) on the final day of the Shikhar Two-day National Cricket Tournament here on Monday.

Resuming their second innings at 18-2, Baitadi declared at 101-6, setting a 267-run target for Nepalgunj. Baitadi had declared their first innings at 259-8 before restricting Nepalgunj to 93 runs.

Dipak Malla scored 35 and Manoj Joshi chipped in 19 runs in Baitadi’s second innings. Durga Sen claimed two wickets for Nepalgunj.

Chasing 267, Nepalgunj were 96-9 in 34 overs. Dipendra Sharma did not bat due to illness. Sammu Khan top-scored with unbeaten 53 while Durga Sen contributed 22.

Dhirendra Chand and Rajendra Chand bagged three wickets each while Sher Bahadur Khatri, Binod Chhetri and Prem Bahadur Chaudhary took one apiece for Baitadi. Dhirendra, who also scored 75 runs in the first innings, was declared the man of the match.

With the result, Baitadi earned 31 points — 14 for win and 17 bonus. Nepalgunj got only 10 points.

In Birgunj, skipper Binod Das guided Region No 2 (Birgunj) to a narrow two-wicket win over Region No 1 (Biratnagar). Trailing by 32 runs against Biratnagar (153 all out) in the first innings, Das turned the game around when he took six scalps to restrict them to lowly 54 runs in the second innings. Raj Mohamad and man of the match Sanjam Regmi claimed two wickets each.

Earlier, Birgunj were bowled out for 121 runs after resuming at 111-8. Pratap Maharjan top scored with 40 runs. Chasing 86 runs from 31 overs, Birgunj reached the target losing eight wickets in the last ball. Bikash Dali scored 40 runs. Lakpa Lama took three and Manjeet Shrestha claimed two wickets for Biratnagar.

Birgung collected 27.5 while Biratnagar got 13 points from the match.