Nepal shine with blazing victory over Malaysia

Day three of the tournament dawned with the rain threatening to ruin it all, but the ground staff and officials worked their magic to get the ground ready for a nine-overs-a-side affair.

Gyanendra Malla, standing in for the injured Nepal captain Paras Khadka, won the toss and elected to field. From over one it was enthralling cricket with the Malaysian openers looking to take the game to Nepal. Sompal Kami took the new ball for Nepal and was able to strike with the very first delivery, hitting the deck hard and generating good pace and bounce to remove Anwar Arudin and then Sahfiq Sharif from the last ball of the first over. Syed Aziz hit two boundaries off Kami in the same over and that gave a sign of things to follow with both sides look to seize the initiative.

Aziz (30 off 15) and Virandeep Singh (21 off 17) were the pick of the batsmen as Malaysia kept losing regular wickets to the brilliance of Nepal in the field and their penetrative bowling. B Regmi picked up figures of 2/9 from one over and Kami finished with 3/23 from two overs to restrict Malaysia to a total of 83/7 from nine overs.

Nepal openers PS Airee (12 off 14) and Malla (51 off 21) took to the park with intent and wrestled control from the get-go in their chase of 84 for victory. The openers reached 66 from 5.2 overs with some spectacular shots all around the park, giving the Nepal supporters present plenty to shout about. Malla, in particular, was in a rampaging mood, hitting five boundaries and three massive sixes, making it Nepal’s fastest T20I half-century.

Muhammad Syahadat impressed for the Malaysians with 3/19 from his two overs but Nepal cruised to their target with an over to spare and seven wickets in hand.

Malla – the stand-in captain – was the Player of the Match for his breathtaking 51 and astute captaincy.

Tomorrow is a rest day and the action restarts on Friday 26th July with Qatar taking on Kuwait and hosts Singapore playing Malaysia.