Nepal defeated Papua New Guinea (PNG) by 52 runs in the tri-nation ODI series under ICC World Cup Cricket League-2. Pursuing the target of 298 runs given by Nepal, PNG got all out after scoring 245 runs in 47 overs. For PNG, Nerman Bhanuwa scored 60 runs,Teni Ura scored 50 runs, and Asad Bhala scored 42 runs. On the bowling side, Nepal’s Sandeep Lamichhane took 4 wickets, Dipendrasingh Airi took 2 wickets and Kushal Malla took 1 wicket.
Earlier, Nepal, who lost the toss and batted first at the Trivi Cricket Ground, Kirtipur, were bowled out for 297 runs in 49 overs. This is the highest score ever made by Nepal in ODIs. Asif Sheikh scored 110 runs for Nepal. This is his first century in ODIs. Similarly, Kushal Bhurtel scored 45, Bhim Sarki scored 44 and captain Rohit Paudel scored 30 runs. In terms of bowling, Semay Kamiya of PNG took 5 wickets and Riley Hikure took 3 wickets.
With this victory, Nepal has maintained the possibility of playing the World Cup qualifiers. Nepal, remaining in the top three, has to win all the remaining 3 matches to directly qualify for the World Cup in Zimbabwe in June/July. Similarly, to maintain the ODI status, now you have to win 1 match. If Nepal loses one match, it will have to play qualifier playoffs.
In this series there are UAE and PNG along with home team Nepal. Nepal will play the same 2/2 match against UAE and Papua New Guinea. This is the last series of ICC World Cup Cricket League-2. In another match of the series, Nepal will play against UAE on Sunday.
In the points table, Nepal is in fifth place with 34 points from 33 games. PNG is at the bottom of the table with 9 points from the same game. UAE is in sixth place with 31 points from 32 games. The top three teams of League-2 get to play the World Cup qualifiers directly. Scotland became the winner with 50 points and Oman came second with 44 points and directly qualified for the World Cup. Namibia and UAE along with Nepal are competing for the remaining one place.
Comments