Gauchan, Shrestha fashion Nepal’s mammoth victory

BY NARAYAN UPADHYAY

Kathmandu, Oct. 13: Nepal made a clean sweep of all its league fixtures today when it trounced the whipping boys Maldives by a whopping 251 runs in its last match of the group B at the Engineering Institute ground in the ongoing Under-19 Asian Youth Cricket Cup.

Lanky Shakti Gauchan, who achieved the distinction of becoming the first batsmen in the tournament to have scored a century, and other top order Nepal batsmen proved that their batting is not of an average standard for they hammered a mammoth 307 for six in 50 overs, the highest run aggregate scored so far in the ongoing tournament.

The Bhairahawa-born middle order batsman, Gauchan, showed grit as well as batting techniques in his patiently struck century punctuated with seven fours. Gauchan needed just 107 balls to touch the magic mark of 100 runs in 109 minutes of his vigil at the crease.

The another highlight of the Nepalese innings was the performance of all-rounder Manjit Shrestha, who, apart from hitting a quick 43 in 25 balls, in which he struck three fours and two sixes, one at long –off and another at long-on, also claimed five wickets for 28 runs. Both Shakti and Manjit were given the man of the match with for their brilliant works by bats and balls.

Gauchan and Manjit along with opener Kanishka Chaugai and Bardan Chalise both of whom chipped in with 37 runs each contributed handsomely to the team to post the mammoth total. The match, as expected by many, turned out to be a batting practice fixture for the hosts as most of its top order batsmen got the chance to wield their willows in front of the shaky Maldivians’ attacks.

While today’s win gave the hosts three wins out of three, for Maldivians it was just the opposite.

They lost all there three matches. It was really a sad day for the lowly placed minnows – the Maldivians, who after failing with balls also failed badly to sparkle with bat. In front of hosts’ huge and incredible looking total, they did not see any chance to do better and there was virtually no effort to do better in front of accurate medium pace attack of the captain Das who claimed three Maldivians wickets and Manjit. The South Indian Island nation collapsed to a petty 56 in just 28. 6 overs in their one hour fifty five minute long innings.

The victory placed hosts in the top of the table and will face the runners up of the pool A in the semifinals on Monday. Sunday will be the rest day.

SCOREBOARD

Nepal (won the toss and elected to bat)

Kaniska Chaugai lbw A.Arafat 37 (33)

Yashwant Subedi c keeper b AU Jamal 04 (04)

Bardan Chalise c keeper b M Mahfooz 37 (50)

Shakti Gauchan st. keeper b M. Azlee 100 (107)

Basudev Thapa lbw A. Arafat 43 (54)

Binod Das c. wkt keeper b Azlee 07 (11)

Manjit Shrestha notout 43 (25)

Lakpa Lama notout 11 (16)

Extras 25

Total 307

Overs 50

Did not bat: Manoj Katuwal, Sanjam Regmi, Basant Regmi

Fall of Wickets: 1/08, 2/74, 3/121, 4/230, 5/247, 6/254

Bowling: Habeeb 07-0-49-0. Jamal 05-0-25-1. Iyadh Ahmed 02-012-0. Arafat 10-0-53-2. Ziyadh 04-0-36-0. Azlee 10-0-53-2. Mahfooz 10-0-56-1 Hafiz 01-0-22-0

The Maldives

Hasan Aflam runout( Yashwant) 03 (05)

Hasan Ziyadh b Binod Das 02 (34)

Md.Sarfaraz Hafiz lbw M. Shrestha 09 (24)

Md. Azlee lbw Shrestha 02 (08)

I. Iujaz Hafiz c Kanishka bDas 05 (08)

A.I.Ahmed c&b Shrestha 06 (15)

Md. Habeeb b Shrestha 00 (03)

Md. Mahafooz b Basant Regmi 02 (33)

A. U. Jamal c Das b, Shrestha 00 (10)

A. Arafat notout 08 (17)

I. Suwaidh b Das 01 (15)

Extras 18

Total 56

Overs 28.2

Fall of Wkts: 1/3, 2/16, 3/18, 4/23, 5/23, 6/23, 7/37, 8/43, 9/54, 10/56

Bowling: Binod Das 9.2-04-09-03. Manjit Shrestha 10-01-28-05. Basant Regmi 05-02-05-01. Lakpa Lama 04-0-09-0.

Result: Nepal won by 251 runs

Himalayan Bank Man of the Match: Jointly shared by Nepal’s Shakti Gauchan and Manjit Shrestha.

U-19 Asia Cup semifinals
Nepal face UAE, S’pore play Malaysia

BY A STAFF REPORTER

Kathmandu, Oct. 13: Singapore and Malaysia won their last fixtures in the ongoing Under-19 Asian Youth Cricket Cup and secured their places in the semifinals. United Arab Emirates and hosts Nepal are the other teams who have already made it into the semifinals of the eight nations championship, the winner of which would fly to New Zealand to play World Youth Cricket Cup.

Nepal will meet UAE the runner up of Group A while group A winner Malaysia will play against the runner up of group B Singapore in the cup semifinals.

Meanwhile the four lowly placed teams- Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the Maldives will play their matches with each other for the plate final which will decide their final placement in the whole tournament.

Singapore defeat Oman: In its last group match, Singapore recorded a 2-wicket close win against Oman. Invited to bat first, the Omanese players made 143. Openers Adnan Ilyas (28) and Abbas Jawad (26) played 52 run partnership. Rustam Khan also assisted with 22 runs. For Singaporeans, Sanjid Ahmed and Riaj Altaf Hussein took three wickets each. Shabir, Pushpanathan and Lekhawar claimed one wicket each.

Though the victory target of 144 looked achievable, but Singaporeans found it hard to score free against Rustam Ali Khan. The highest contribution for Singapore came from all rounder Riaz Hussein who scored 35 in 47 balls. But the real games winning show came from Paviter Singh and tenth man Tan Chong Nian who guided Singapore to the victory. Singh who came when the team’s score was 110/7 played cautiously to score 17 notout in 41 balls while tenth man Tan Chong came to the crease when his team looked defeat at 114/8.

Tan hammered 15 in 26 balls with two fours to guide his team to victory that rightly earned them a place in semifinals. Earlier, Singapore had defeated the Maldives in its first fixture.

Malaysia pulls a surprise win: Malaysia, who faced the danger of becoming the highly rated victim of the match, pulled a surprise 7-wicket victories against UAE in the last group A match. The win sent Malaysian into the semifinals of the eight-nation tournament.

Malaysian Md Raznan Zabri (three wickets for 30 runs in five overs), Arul Vivasyan (three wickets for 12 runs) and Md. Ridzuwan ( two for five) bowled with scathing effects to send UAE packing for 79 in 28.2 overs. Captain Naimuddin was the only batsman who showed some resistance with his 29 runs scored in 80 balls. Malaysians Azhar Zanal and Nor Roslee combined together to score 38 runs in their fourth wicket partnership and guided the team to post the victory target of 80 in 29.5 overs.

Kuwait win: Though Kuwait recorded its one-wicket victory today against Oman but it was not sufficient to find them a place in the cup semifinals. Qatar made 146 in 38.4 overs. But Kuwait reached the target in 42.5 overs losing nine of its wickets.