Nepal’s glorious victory against the United States
Nepal clinched a thrilling victory over the United States in the first match of the ICC Cricket World Cup League II triangular series. In the first match of the series between Oman, Nepal and USA, Nepal defeated USA by 5 wickets on Monday.
Winning the toss and choosing to bat, USA scored 230 runs with the loss of 9 wickets in 50 overs. Monank Patel top-scored with 100 runs off 114 balls with nine fours and one six. Patel, who scored the first century of his career, has become the second batsman after Jaskaran Malhotra to score a century in the US ODIs.
Apart from Malhotra, no other American batsman has been able to make a big score. Nisarg Patel scored 21, Karima Gore and Sushant Modani 16, Steven Taylor 14, Sanjay Krishnamurthy and Abhishek Paradkar 13, Jaskaran Malhotra scored 11 runs. Nepal will play its second match of the series against Oman on Tuesday.
Nepal completed the target of 231 runs set by the United States in 49 overs by losing 5 wickets. In Nepal’s victory, opener Kushal Bhurtel scored the highest 84 runs in the first ODI half-century in which he hit 3 fours and 3 sixes in 93 balls.
Similarly, Rohit Poudel, who scored the third half century of his career, scored an unbeaten 62 runs in which he hit 2 fours and 3 sixes in 87 balls. Similarly, Binod Bhandari contributed 37 runs, Asif Sheikh 23 runs and Gyanendra Malla 17 runs.
Chasing the target, openers Kushal Bhurtel and Asif Sheikh shared a 66-run opening partnership, which is also Nepal’s highest opening partnership. Asif was caught out by Kenjige in the 14th over.
Captain Gyanendra Malla, who looked in good rhythm, caught with LBW in the 21st over. After that, Bhurtel shared 51 runs with Rohit Poudel. In the 33rd over, Nisarg Patel lbw Bhurtel back to the game. Soon after, Saurabh Netravalkar caught Kushal Malla from the wicketkeeper.
Rohit Poudel shared 83 runs with Binod Bhandari. When only 3 runs were needed for the victory, Bhandari was caught out by Kenjige behind the wicket. Then in the last ball of the 49th over, Rohit took 2 runs to lead Nepal to victory. Kushal Bhurtel was awarded as Man of the Match. Nepal will play its second match of the series against Oman on Tuesday. The game will start at 4:15 pm Nepali time.
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