Nepal defeat S'pore by 4 wickets in U-19s World Cup Asia qualifier
KATHMANDU: Nepal made a winning start of the ICC Asia Under-19s World Cup Qualifier by defeating the hosts Singapore by 4 wickets in the opening match of the campaign on Monday.
The match was played at the Padang Field of Singapore's Cricket Club.
Nepal won the toss and invited the hosts to take the first strike of the match.
However, Singapore could not capatalise on the sunny batting wicket and exploit the home conditions as they mustered a meagre total of 72 runs in 29 overs of their allotted 50 overs.
Nepal's skipper Sandeep Lamichanne racked havoc as his leg spin tormented the hosts batting line up. Lamichanne was pick of the bowler as he took 8-2-21-5.
Shahab Alam and Kishore Mahato took 3 and 2 scalps respectively.
In reply, Nepal got off to a disastrous start as openers Sandeep Sunar and Aasif Sheikh trudged back to the pavilion cheaply. Nepal's fragile batting has wobbled in the junior side as well.
If Nepal are to be a force in the cricketing world they need to resurrect their batting disarray from the junior level in time.
At one stage Nepal were reeling at 31-3 in 8 overs as most promising batsman Dipendra Singh Airee was plum leg before the wicket. He contributed just 2 runs to the total.
Nepali batsman were put under tremendous pressure as they kept on losing wickets at a regular interval giving sniff of hopes to the hosts of pulling a stunning victory over the Himalayan Nation.
However, Nepali batsmen held their nerve as they met their target in 18th over with more than 195 balls to spare.
Pranit Thapa Magar top scored for Nepal with 23 runs, Anil Sah made 19 runs and Pawan Sarraf hit the winning run as he smashed the full delivery to long on boundary for four runs.
Skipper Sandeep Lamichanne was adjudged as man of the match for his overall performance in team's victory.
Nepal are pitted against the U-19 sides of Afghanistan, Malaysia and Singapore.
Nepal will play next against the Malaysia on July 18.
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