Nepal won the first major cricket tournament defeating the US by five wickets in the Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 5 on Saturday.
After bowling out the US for 172 in 47.2 overs, Nepal chased the target in 46.5 overs in front of 15,000 cheering spectators at the TU Cricket Ground.
Left-arm spinner Rahul Vishvakarma claimed his career-best seven wickets by giving away only 15 runs to bring down the US at a time when they were in a strong position at 150/3.
“Rahul bowled exceptionally well,” captain Paras Khadka commented after the match. “The credit goes to Rahul for today´s win.”
For the US, captain Steve Massiah scored the highest 55 runs while Orlando Baker hit 49. Binod Das and Sanjam Regmi took a wicket each.
Nepal began well with new opening pair, Mahesh Chhetri (28) and Anil Manal (39), and they added 85 runs in 23 overs to put Nepal on top.
Shakti Gauchan contributed 23 runs while Gyanendra Malla remained unbeaten on 28 along with Mehboob Alam, who scored 17 runs with a four and a six, to seal the victory.
Nepal will now travel to Italy in August to compete in the Division 4 matches where they will meet the US, Italy, Tanzania, Cayman Islands and Argentina in a bid to get promoted to Division 3.
World Cricket League is an International Cricket Council (ICC) event to assess and give opportunity to all its 94 associate and affiliate member nations for World Cup qualification matches.
If Nepal go into the finals of Division 4 in Italy and Division 3 next year and finish in top four in Division 2 in 2011, they will have an opportunity to compete in the 12-nation World Cup 2015 qualifiers from which six top teams will qualify for the World Cup 2015.
Bahrain beat S´pore in third place playoff
Bahrain registered a three-wicket victory over Singapore to claim the third position in the Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 5 on Saturday.
Singapore won the toss and elected to bat first at the Birendra Sainik Mahavidyalaya Ground, Bhaktapur. Singapore, who were behind Nepal only because of run rate in the round robin, could not start the innings well and failed to win the third place playoff.
Their openers Buddika Mendis and Chetan Suryawanshi both failed and Singapore got a feeble start. Singapore could not face Bahrain´s bowling attack and were packed for 126 runs in 43 overs.
Tahir Dar took 4 wickets for Bahrain while Adil Hanif, Qamar Saeed and Zafar Zaheer claimed two wickets each. Munish Arora scored the highest 29 runs for Singapore.
In reply, Bahrain met the target in 25.1 overs losing seven wickets. Imran Sajjad hit 34 runs while Ashraf Yaqoob added 32 runs to seal the victory.
In the match between two relegated teams, Jersey defeated Fiji by five wickets at the Pulchowk Cricket Ground. Fiji put on 258 runs in 50 overs losing seven wickets while Jersey chased the total with 5 balls remaining.
(my republica)
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