The jubilant Nepali squad posing with the trophy after beating New Zealand in the ICC Under-19 World Cup Plate Championship in Colombo on Saturday.
(Photo source: THT)

Nepal has won the title of the plate championship of ICC U-19 World Cup defeating New Zealand by one wicket in Sri Lanka Saturday.

New Zealand opted to bat first after winning the toss and made 204 runs losing all wickets in 49.2 overs in a match held at P Saravanamuttu Stadium.

In reply, Nepal achieved the target in 49.2 overs.

Left-armer Basanta Regm, who held his nerve at the end of that match against South Africa, recorded figures of 3-41, Sharad Vesawkar picked up 2-32 and Raj Shrestha took 1-30. But all bowlers played their parts in restricting a batting line-up that scored 305 and 295 in their previous matches against Ireland and the United States of America respectively.

Left-arm swing bowler Amrit Bhattarai took two early wickets, including of in-form Andrew de Boorder, leg before wicket, in the first ball, to finish with 2-25 and his opening bowling partner Paras Khadka picked up 1-20 in nine economical overs.

The only one of Nepal’s bowlers to go wicketless was off-spinner Ratan Rauniyar but he was still very tidy, delivering his 10 overs for just 44 runs.

New Zealand was indebted to opener Todd Astle, one of their more consistent performers on the tour, for helping to ensure they reached a competitive total.

Astle made a patient 66 from 86 balls in just over two hours at the crease in an innings that included nine fours.

Three other batsmen, Kieran Noema-Barnett (26), Shaun Fitzgibbon (29) and Roneel Hira (26) were the only other batsmen to reach 20 and Fitzgibbon and Hira’s contributions were especially important.

When they joined forces New Zealand were 145-6 and in serious trouble but they added 47 before the innings subsided badly in the final four overs as the last four wickets fell for the addition of just 12 runs.

Nepal wicketkeeper Mahesh Chhetri had to leave the field suffering from dehydration for six overs and Prem Chowdhury took over the keeping duties. Chhetri later returned and finished the innings with three stumpings.

New Zeland’s fall of wickets was as follows:

1-12 (Guptill, 2.3 ov), 2-12 (de Boorder, 2.4 ov), 3-60 (Ellison, 18.1 ov), 4-113 (Noema-Barnett, 29.3 ov), 5-122 (Astle, 31.5 ov), 6-145 (Karaitiana, 39.5 ov), 7-192 (Fitzgibbon, 46.1 ov), 8-197 (Hira, 46.6 ov), 9-199 (Southee, 47.3 ov), 10-204 (Munro, 49.2 ov).

In reply Nepal met the target in 49.5 overs losing nine wickets.

Man of the match of the Saturday’s tournament Basanta Regmi had contributed 66 runs for Nepal.

Bennett took three wickets, while Munro, Donnelly and Guptill took two wickets each.

Nepal’s fall of wickets was as follows:

1-36 (Chaugai, 7.2 ov), 2-43 (Chhetri, 11.5 ov), 3-62 (Malla, 21.4 ov), 4-63 (Vesawkar, 22.3 ov), 5-72 (Subedi, 25.1 ov), 6-75 (Khadka, 26.1 ov), 7-145 (Chaudhary, 42.1 ov), 8-148 (Kesari, 43.1 ov), 9-192 (Regmi, 48.2 ov).

With this victory Nepal became the ninth-ranked team in the tournament.

However, this victory was not very encouraging to Nepal as the Plate Championship is the competition for the eight sides that failed to qualify for the Super League.

Nepal did not get entry into Super League after England defeated Nepal by 77 runs in the first match and Zimbabwe defeated Nepal by 2 runs in the second match. The top two teams from each group qualify for the Super League series while the bottom two go to the Plate Championship.