As a prelude to this year’s ICC T-20 World Cup, Nepal won its opening match of the five-game T20 series against West Indies A on Saturday.
The first match was an exciting contest, with Nepal chasing the 205 runs mark in the allotted 20 overs at the TU Cricket Ground in Kirtipur on Saturday. 1With four wickets left in 19.4 overs, the Rhinos amassed 206 runs to surpass the goal thanks to a brilliant 54-ball 112 runs from Nepali skipper Rohit Paudel.
In addition, it was his first-ever T20 century while playing for the national squad in cricket. West Indies A skipper Roston Chase scored a half-century to help the visitors amass 204 runs.
In the last ball of the first over, Nepal, who chose to field first, removed opener Johnson Charles for a duck. Charles was sent to the pavilion in the first over by Kamal Singh Airee.
After then, Andre Fletcher, the wicketkeeper, went back to the pavilion after getting dismissed for 13 runs off 5 balls in 3.3 overs.
Alick Athanaze, Charles’ opening partner, managed to hold on despite smashing three sixes and five shots to the fences on route to a score of 47 from 25 balls on the scoreboard. In 6.5 overs, Lalit Rajbanshi caught Athanaze off Paudel.
Before skipper Chase hit a half-century and scored 74 runs, including two sixes and nine boundaries, the visitors were behind 3–86. Before being caught by Kushal Malla off Dipendra Singh Airee in 19.4 overs, he also shared two half-centuries with Keacy Carty and Kadeem Alleyne, for the fourth and fifth wickets, respectively.
Nepal lost openers Anil Sah and Kushal Bhurtel cheaply as they trailed 205. To record his maiden T20 century, Captain Paudel put his best foot forward, hitting ten fences and six maximums.
Along the way, he and Dipendra Singh Airee had a half-century partnership in which the latter scored 24 runs off just 18 deliveries. Gulsan Jha struck two boundaries in the last over to give the Rhinos the victory, requiring Nepal to require nine runs to win.
Sunday is the second game of the bilateral series, which consists of five matches.
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