Nepal signs off with third-place finish Nepal signed off with a third-place finish at the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifer by beating United Arab Emirates by five wickets at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi on Saturday (November 30). Led by a good bowling performance from Basant Regmi, Nepal restricted UAE to 131 for 5. Nepal then reached the target comfortably, with five wickets in hand. “It was an amazing finish; Sharad has been doing really well for us. Basant bowled well and actually the bowlers set it up really nicely and we are pretty happy as we came into the tournament as underdogs, said PParas Khaka, Nepals captain. Not many people fancied Nepal. But we did well to qualify; we all have been pushing ourselves. Now as the tournament is over, we are looking ahead to World Cup Qualifier in New Zealand in January, so it is back to the drawing board again. We need to sort out what we need to work on and try and keep improving. Abdul Shakoor (28) and Rohan Mustafa (24) came up with vital contributions in UAEs total of 131 for 5 in 20 overs, but the innings didnt get the impetus required as Basant Regmi, the left-arm spinner, struck at regular intervals to stifle the run flow. He ended with figures of 4 for 16 in four overs. The chase wasnt as straightforward as Nepal would have liked. Shadeep Silva struck in the fifth over to dismiss Sagar Pun, the opener, for 19, while Kamran Shahzad picked up two quick wickets to bring UAE back into the game. Subash Khakurel then steered Nepals chase with a solid 38 along with Sharad Vesawkar who shared a 47-run stand for the fourth wicket in just 5.3 overs. Vesawkar remained unbeaten on 43 as he shared a quickfire 36-run partnership in 3 overs with AK Mandal (13*) as Nepal reached the target with four balls to spare. “I think fielding is the major concern to be honest. We need to do the hard yards and work on our fitness. I think in the whole tournament the batting did not click in the way we expected, because in some of the practice matches and our batting in the last six months was decent, said Khurram Khan, UAEs captain. But in this tournament, the batting just collapsed; we had partnerships, we had good performances in the end, but not on a consistent basis.
Posted on: Sun, 01 Dec 2013 09:33:01 +0000
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