Nepal defeats Kenya by 3 wickets

KATHMANDU, Feb 12: Nepal defeated Kenya by 3 wickets in the match held today under the ICC World Cricket League Division Two, 2018.

In the match held at the Wanderers Cricket Ground in Windhoek of Namibia, Nepal restricted Kenya to 177 in the stipulated 50 overs, taking 8 wickets, opting to bowl first after winning the toss.

Sandeep Lamichhane was instrumental in limiting the Kenyan total with 5 wickets in 10 overs at the cost of only 20 runs. It also won him the player-of-the-match award later. Sompal Kami, Basant Regmi and Sharad Veshwakar took one wicket each.

For Kenya, only the two openers Irfan Karim and Alex Obanda lasted long with 42 and 41 runs respectively.

In reply, Nepal achieved the victory target of 178 runs at the loss of seven wickets using their full quota of 50 overs, with the final two runs coming off the last ball of the match. A gritty innings of 42 runs in 44 balls by captain Paras Khadka and a strong partnership between Aarif Sheikh (42) and Rohit Kumar (47) secured the second straight win for Nepal.

Emmanuel Bundi of Kenya took three wickets.

With the win, Nepal stands in the second position in the points table comprising 6 countries. Canada which is in the first position has similar 6 points from four matches as Nepal, but heads the points table on better run rate.

Nepal will have an opportunity to top the points table when it faces Canada in the match to be held on Wednesday. The top two teams from the league will make it to the final two spots in the 2018 Cricket World Cup Qualifier.