Nepal is in Malaysia in the quest to secure the spot on ICC World T20 Qualification, and Nepal is on a right track. They have almost secured Asian Regional Finals. 3 top teams from ICC World Twenty20 Asia Region Qualifier B goes to Asian Regional Finals in Qatar and Nepal is just a win away. They will play Bhutan who is relatively an easy opponent which should suffice them to enter into next round. Today at Malaysia, Nepal secured another big win against the table leader Thailand to go into the top of the table.
Today was a different game at Kuala Lumpur from the other day as Nepal was facing the stronger opponent. And Nepal who is known to perform poorly batting first came to bat first. There was already tension among the fans that it was going to be a tight game but strangely Nepal's opener provided a good start which is not again normal. The pair of Sah and Bhandari came to bat for Nepal and provided a good partnership of 28 runs for Nepal before Bhandari was out at 15 runs from just 8 balls which included 2 fours and a six. Nepal lost Sah at 54 runs as he scored 25 off 17 balls to support Vesawkar for the second wicket. Vesawkar and Airee hold Nepal's inning as Nepal saw itself at 99-2 in some stage of the game. Vesawkar got 34 while Airee got 30 runs. After some good bowling by Sungnard, Nepal quickly lost 5 wickets to be at 128-7 at 17.2 overs. But the hero of today's match, Karan KC came to bat and scored a quick 40 runs off 14 balls which included 2 fours and 4 sixes to take Nepal to a big score of 172-7 at the end of the 20th over. Sungnard destroyed Nepal's middle order taking 4 wickets in his 4 overs.
Thailand came to bat but the fell like the pile of cards in front of Nepal's strong bowling. Rajbanshi and Lamichhane opened the bowling for Nepal. Rajbanshi got opener Shafiqul Haque in his first over. Lamichhane was yet again impressive as he didn't do any delay to crush Thailand and got his first wicket in his second ball dismissing DF Jacobs for 1 run. Lamichhane was unstoppable today too as he got second 5 wicket haul bowling 3 overs and conceding just 8 runs. All-rounder Karan KC destroyed the lower order in his spell of 1.5 overtaking 3 wickets as Thailand made just 18 runs in 8.5 overs. It rained heavily at the meantime when Nepal needed just 1 more wicket to defeat Thailand and match was stopped. Using D/L method, Nepal was judged winner with a big win of 140 runs and Karan KC was judged as a man of the match for his all-round performance.
This is how the table looks for now:
Nepal will play Bhutan next and are yet to play Singapore and all-ready eliminated China. Nepal should easily go to the next round for now but this match is going into the history book for eliminating strong Thailand to just 18 runs. After long, Nepal showed some positive batting performance. Nepal has a top class bowling, and improvement in batting is a good sign. Here is the final score from the today's match: https://www.icc-cricket.com/match/9282#scorecard
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