To secure the spot on Icc World T20 Qualification in 2020, 62 countries around the globe are competing for the 8 available spots. In the first round of the qualification, Nepal is playing in East Sub-regional Group. The top three teams from the East Sub-regional Group will go to Asian Regional Finals. Out of 6 teams in Asian Regional Finals, top 2 teams will go to 2020 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier.

Source: Wikimedia

In its first match today, Nepal faced Myanmar Bayuemas Oval, Malaysia. Winning the toss, Myanmar elected to bat first. Batting first Myanmar made just 29 runs in 9.6 over. At some stage, Myanmar was at 5/28, but a brilliant spell from Sandeep Lamichhane and Lalit Rajbansi restricted Myanmar into 29 runs. For Myanmar, Captain H Lin Aung scored 16 runs facing 20 balls. He was the only player from Myanmar to score a double-digit figure. Interestingly, only 5 players managed to open their account while 6 of the players managed the nothing.

As usual, Nepal was brilliant in bowling, and Sandeep Lamichhane had a brilliant spell. He bowled a total of two overs conceding 3 runs and getting 4 crucial wickets. The other bowler who shone today was Lalit Narayan Rajbansi. From his 3 overs, he collected 3 wickets conceding 3 runs with 2 maidens. Karan KC and Lalit Bhandari share a wicket each for Nepal.

Chasing the target of just 30 runs, Nepal weak batting was exposed once again against weak Myanmar. Nepal conceded 2 wickets to reach the target. Nepal has struggled a lot for the perfect opener duo, and they started with Pradeep Airee and Binod Bhandari who are known as a hard-hitting batsman. But it failed again as Airee was duck-out while Bhandari just managed 1 run. For Nepal, Anil Kumar scored 11 runs off 5 balls before getting lbw out Paing Danu while Karna KC scored 14 runs facing 8 balls. Nepal achieved the target at the end of the third over.

Here is the final scorecard of the match: https://www.icc-cricket.com/match/9273#scorecard

Today was one of the easiest game for Nepal but the real test begins when Nepal will play host Malaysia in its second match on 6th October. Nepal must improve its batting for this game, which has been the weak link for a long time. Nepal, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia are the prime contenders to qualify for Asian Regional Finals, Nepal should easily qualify but needs to improve its batting if Nepal wants to dream of ICC T20 World Cup cricket again. Nepal played ICC T20 World Cup, Bangladesh in 2014.

Not only Nepal, both Thailand and Malaysia registered a big win today. Malaysia won against Bhutan by 67 runs while Thailand defeated China by 10 wickets as China only managed 35 runs in their 20 overs.