Nepal recorded first victory in WCL 3

Bermuda,May 2 – Nepal has recorded its first victory of Pepsi ICC World Cricket League (WCL) Division 3 in Bermuda, defeating host Bermuda by eight wickets in their third round match in front of a passionate crowd at St David’s.

Under a grey sky, Nepal won the toss and elected to field.  Nepal’s decision proved to be a good one, as the combination of Chandra Sawad and Prithu Baskota restricted the run rate.  Bermuda lost six wickets for 45 runs to be left struggling at 89 for eight in the 31st over.

A patient knock from Captain Stephen Outerbridge (29) resisted the spin attack, and once the captain was bowled by his opposite number, Paras Khadka, Malachi Jones (15 not out) did his best to salvage the innings, however the host was all out for 106 in the 39th over.  Man of the match Khadka was the pick of the Nepal bowlers, taking four for 31, while Basant Regmi claimed three for 20 with an economy rate of 2.00.

Nepal chased down the target quickly, with captain Khadka (46 not out) and Gyanendra Mall (34 not out) finding the boundary regularly to ensure that Nepal reached its target of 107 in the 12th over for the loss of two wickets.  All-rounder and former captain of the Bermuda Under 19 team, Rodney Trott, took both wickets.

The thrilled Nepal captain said after the match: “We were due for it.  It was sad that we couldn’t live up to our potential in the first two games, but anyway, we picked up in this game.  We still have a long way to go, a couple more games, so we just need to go there and win convincingly.

“The pitch really helped us.  The pitch is really turning.  The boys have worked hard for it and we bowled very, very well. We bowled to the conditions and the fielders backed it up, and the batters finished it.”

With two matches left in the group stage, Khadka believes his team will keep improving. “It’s still not the end of the tournament for us, we’ve still got two games to look forward to. We’ll take it one game at a time.  We’ll go out there and go for the win.  There’s no alternative for us.  The only way we can move forward it by winning all the games, so we’ve got to take all the positives from this game and move ahead.”

Bermuda skipper Stephen Outerbridge was disappointed with his side’s batting: “I think again our batting let us down.  It’s hard to win a match when you only get 100 runs on the board, and then you start as poor as we did.  It just can’t happen.

“We didn’t clear the ground at all.  We looked at the wicket, it is turning square.  They made the inroads early and we found it hard to get out of the rut that we’ve been in.  Credit to Nepal, they played well and deserved to win.”

Looking forward to tomorrow’s clash with Italy, the skipper was philosophical: “What I told the boys the other day is to look inward and come back better than you were the day before.  If everyone can do that, and have a stronger performance, than hopefully we can make it two wins and two losses for the tournament tomorrow.  Hopefully there’ll be a few surprises in the other games and then we’re back into the tournament and still trying to push for a promotion place.”

USA’s result against Italy moves the side to top of the table, pushing Uganda down to second.  Nepal jumps two places to fourth, while Bermuda drops one spot to fifth.

BY- ICC