Belgaria beat Police to march into final

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KATHMANDU, Jan 12- Belgaria Sports Club, Calcutta knocked Mahendra Police Club out of the Birthday Cup Friday in the first semi-final played here today.

The match had to be decided on penalties after both the teams fineshed scoreless in the regulation and thirty minutes of extra time. In the penalty shootout the visiting team from Calcutta prevailed 4-3 against the home side to the disappointment of the home supporters.

The first half saw the Mahendra Police Club slightly dominate Calcutta’s Belgaria Sports Club. Mid-way through the first half they seemed to have match in their control but failed to score any goal.

Mahendra Police had a chance to steal a goal in the 20th minute when Hari Khadka squandered a costly chance minutes before he was injured and taken to hospital.

Devnarayan Chaudhary missed another chance in the last minute of the first half. Similarly, Calcutta’s Rafiq missed a crucial cross pass from S Dutta in the 8th minute missing a closest chance to score from the box.

Mahendra Police started playing vigorously in the second half in search of goal but their attack didn’t pay as most of their shots either missed the taget or squandered away through recurring miss-kick. Calcutta didn’t lag behind the pace and played an attacking game too but seemed to be suffering through the lack of effective striking performance.

Despite many attempts and tremendous pressure over the visitors in the potentially explosive second half, Mahendra police failed to strike at the goal resulting in the depressing sequence of missed shots.

By the time the regulation 90 minutes was over, the score on both the sides was confined to 0-0. The 30 minute extra time didn’t make any difference for either team forcing the match into a penalty shootout. Ramesh Budathoki squandered a costly chance through the first 30 minute of the golden goal session while Owino Akamu of Calcutta squandered a costly header.

The closest chance to score fell on Ramesh Budathoki in the second half of the golden goal session but his shot hit the post to deflect, shattering the hope of Police. A huge crowd of spectators were kept to the edge of their seats right till the end of the tie breaker.

Rakesh Shrestha and Anil Adhikari proved villains for the Polise team as they missed their penalty shots.

Dev Narayan Chaudhary (7), Dilip Katuwal (12), and Kishor Subba scored the penalty for Police while Rafiq, S. Dutta, Owino Akamu and Moses, both Nigerians scored .

Manang Marshyangdi will take on RCT in the last semifinal tomorrow.

Ward 14 score big win

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KATHMANDU, Jan 12 - Ward no 14 crushed Ward no 13 by 277 runs in today’s match of the first Birthday Cup Inter-Ward Cricket tournament being played at the Tundikhel, organised by Bishalnagar Youth Club.

Batting first after winning the toss, Ward 14 scored a mammoth total of 337 runs. The Ward 14 boys made merry on the weak bowling attack of Ward 13. Monish Shrestha scored a quick century to help his team post a big total. He made 103 runs off 75 balls.

His partner Paresh Lohani was not far behind playing a blistering knock of 95 coming in mere 47 balls. His batting was characterized by a flurry of shots all round the wicket. Rabindra Thapa and Raju Basnet also chipped in with 36 and 29 runs coming off 24 and 16 balls respectively.

The bowling figures of Ward 13 bowlers was a sorry sight except with the bowlers neither being able to contain the batsmen nor take wickets to make any impact on the scoring.

Ward 13 never looked to be getting anywhere near the huge target of 338 runs. They were shot out for a total of 61 runs. None of their batsman could cross the score of 20. The highest scorer was Pawan with an individual effort of 15 runs.

Niraj of Ward no 14 took 4 wickets giving away 22 runs while Bibhushan took three wickets conceding just 1 run in his spell of 2 overs. Raju Basnet took two of the remaining wickets.

Monish Shrestha was adjudged man of the match for his century in the match.