Kathmandu: In the ICC T20 World Cup cricket match today, Nepal faced a defeat against Bangladesh by 21 runs. Nepal was bowled out for 85 runs in 19 overs and 2 balls, marking an unsuccessful end to their pursuit of a historic win in the competition. Nepal had an opportunity to avenge their loss against Bangladesh from ten years ago in 2014, but they fell short once again. Nepal has yet to defeat a test-playing team in T20 cricket.
In today’s match, Nepal’s Kushal Malla scored the highest with 27 runs, followed by Dipendra Singh Airee with 25 runs and Aasif Sheikh with 17 runs. Captain Rohit Paudel was dismissed for just 1 run. Bangladesh set Nepal a target of 176 runs to win.
Bangladesh, batting first after losing the toss at Kingsmead, scored 176 runs in 19 overs and 3 balls before being all out. Shakib Al Hasan top-scored with 17 runs, followed by contributions from Mohammadullah and Mehidy Hasan who both scored 13 runs each. Taskin Ahmed remained unbeaten on 12 runs, while Liton Das added 10 runs. No other Bangladeshi player managed to score in double figures.
In today’s game, Sandeep Lamichhane took two wickets in four overs, becoming Nepal’s first player to reach 100 wickets in T20 cricket, surpassing Afghanistan’s Rashid Khan for the fastest to achieve this milestone.
Similarly, captain Rohit Paudel, Dipendra Singh Airee, and Sompal Kami each took two wickets. Sompal Kami took his first wicket in the first ball of the match. Nepal had previously been knocked out from the group stage by South Africa by a single run.
With this victory, Bangladesh has advanced to the Super Eight from Group D. Earlier, South Africa had reached the Super Eight from this group. Nepal lost its first match to the Netherlands by 6 wickets and the second match against Sri Lanka was canceled due to weather conditions.