Yesterday, in the second ODI match of Nepal tour of UAE, Nepal beat home team UAE easily by 145 runs and level the 3 match series by 1-1 before 1 match to play. Nepal’s Sompal Kami was selected player of the match for his 5 wickets contribution in the match. But it was Rohit Kumar Poudel, who successfully pulled all the media’s attention and became the yesterday’s news headline after breaking the Sachin Tendulkar’s almost 3-decade old record of youngest player to score the half-century in the senior-level cricket.

Nepal has lost their first ODI of the UAE tour just a day before by 3 wickets, after losing the 7th wicket in 73 runs UAE’s Amir Hayat and Imran Haider made the not out 44 runs for the 8th wicket to hand the thrilling 3 wicket victory for UAE in the first ODI.

First Inning

After losing the first match against UAE, Nepali team decided to drop the experienced left-arm spinner Basanta Regmi and give the chance to 16-year-old Rohit Kumar Poudel in the second ODI. In 2nd ODI, Nepal won the toss and elected to bat first, Nepal openers Gyanendra Malla and Binod Bhandari made the solid opening partnership of 61 runs in the 15 over. Nepal lost their both openers inside the next 10 runs, Binod Bhandari returned back to the pavilion with an individual score of 21 runs while vice-captain Gyanendra Malla was just 6 run sort of his half-century before losing his wicket on Zahoor Khan over. Dipendra Singh Airee again lost his wicket very easily and added only 10 runs in his account. The captain cool Paras Khadka again lost his wicket after reaching the 20-runs mark.

The Aarif Sheikh and Rohit Kumar Poudel added 82runs for 6th wicket partnership before Sheikh lost his wicket in 44th over at individual score of 29runs from 49 balls. Just after the 2 balls of Sheikh wicket, the 16-year-old Nepali Batsmen Rohit Kumar Poudel completed his record-breaking half-century. He lost his wicket at an individual score of 55 runs from 58 balls in the 47th over. Nepal’s Karan KC played the explosive knock of 18runs from 11 balls while Sandeep Lamichane also added not-out 14runs in Nepal’s account.

Second Inning

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While chasing the target of 243 runs, the home team UAE lost first 4 wickets(Chirag Suri 0, Ghulam Shabber 2, Shaiman Anwar, 0 and CP Rizwan 16) inside 6 over for just 29 runs. UAE's all first 4-wickets were taken by Nepal’s medium pace bowler Sompal Kami. Ashfaq Ahmed and Muhammad Usman added 28 runs in UAE board for the 5th wicket before Sandeep Lamichane bowled his second over. Sandeep took UAE's 3 wickets (Rizwan 16, Nawaz 0 and Hayat 0) in his second over. The captain Mohammad Naveed who scored 16runs with 2 sixes in Sandeep’s 3rd over made 19 runs from 9 balls before he was run-out by Pradip Airee. Muhammad Usman who scored the highest run of 2nd inning (26runs) also gave his wicket in Sandeep Lamichane's 4th over. Sompal Kami took the UAE’s last wicket of Zahoor Khan(10 runs) to complete his five-wicket haul. Sompal was rewarded man-of-the-match for his 5-wicket haul.

Rohit’s record:

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When Rohit scored his first ODI half-century, no one on pitch knew that he became the youngest player ever to score the half-century in international cricket. When ICC officially announce about the record on their web site during the second-inning of the match, Rohit becomes the center of attraction in everyone's eyes. He surpassed the cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar’s nearly 30-year-old record by just 67 days to become the youngest player ever to score the half-century in the senior level cricket.

While scoring his half-century against UAE, Rohit was just 16-years and 146-days old. Before yesterday, Indian legend Sachin held that record with his half-century in 1989's test match against Pakistan when he was 16-years and 213 days old. In the one-day international, the record for youngest player to score half-century used to belong to Pakistan’s explosive batsmen Sahid Afridi before Rohit overtook him. In his debut match against Kenya in 1996, Afridi not only became the youngest player to score half-century with 16-year and 217 days but also scored the fastest century in ODI cricket in just 37 balls which eventually broke by AB de Villiers 31 balls century against West Indies in Johannesburg.

Nepal has been playing performing really well in the age-level cricket for the very long time and yesterday’s match was another perfect example of that. Along with Rohit, another teenager star man Sandeep Lamichane also had a great match and took the 4 wickets in his 4 over spell.

After yesterday's win Nepal keep their hope alive for their first ever ODI series-win. Nepal will play the series-deciding 3rd ODI match tomorrow at ICC Academy Ground, Dubai. Hope we all see similar kind of performance from Nepali team in the 3rd ODI. Hope rain will not gonna interrupt in tomorrow's series-deciding match.

Best of Luck Nepali Cricket team for tomorrow's match!!!