Kathmandu, Mar. 10: Lumbini Province has continued its unbeaten run at the Koshi Province Trophy as the team won its third consecutive match of the tournament on Saturday.

Defeating Bagmati Province in its first match of the tournament, Lumbini is at the top of Group B with six points from three wins in three matches. 

Bagmati won the toss and elected to bat first on the second match of Day 5 in Biratnagar. However, with only the top four batsmen scoring in double figures, Bagmati gave a target of 154 runs losing eight wickets in 20 overs.

While opener Ashutosh Ghiraiya departed in the 6th over after scoring 28 off 21, skipper Rit Gautam stayed until the 12th over. Gautam departed as the second wicket after scoring 43 off 33. In at three and four, Uttam Magar and Ishan Pandey added 25 and 21 runs respectively. Rahul Chauhan took three wickets for Lumbini while Krishna Karki and Nirmal Gurung 

bagged two each.

Dev Khanal’s century

Nepal’s U19 captain at the U19 World Cup, Dev Khanal is captaining Lumbini. And he single-handedly took the team to its third win in three matches with a century. Dev completed his century in 51 balls after taking a single in a no-ball. Bishal Bikram KC (27 off 24) then hit a six on the free hit and won the match for Lumbini.

Lumbini only lost three wickets – Mrinal Gurung (9 off 16), Aakash Tripathi (9 off 5) and Prajjwol Thapa (4 off 11) – before chasing the target in 17.2 overs.

Bipin Acharya, Gautam KC and Krijan Gurung took one wicket each for Bagmati.

APF starts with loss

With the two other departmental sides – Tribhuwan Army and Nepal Police – playing their first match of KPT on Day 4, Armed Police Force (APF) Club debuted in the tournament on Day 5. 

APF lost to Karnali Province by 51 runs in the first match played on Saturday. Karnali, electing to bat first, gave a target of 166 runs and defended it.

Before reaching the 50-run mark individually, captain Rabindra Shahi and Bipin Rawal departed scoring 35 and 42 runs respectively. However, in at six, Arjun Gharti’s not-out inning of 55 off 34 took Karnali to a decent total of 165 in the loss of five wickets. 

All five bowlers of APF – Ramesh Kurmi, Chandan Ram, Bhuvan Karki, Amar Routela and Irshad Ahmad – took one wicket each. APF was not bundled out, yet the team fell short of 51 runs by the end of the 20 overs in the chase. Losing six wickets, APF could only add 114 runs on the board.

Routela (37 off 37) was APF’s highest scorer followed by Himanshu Datta (25 off 26). Dipendra Rawat and Rabindra Shahi bagged two wickets each for Karnali while Prakash Jaishi took one.

Karnali now has two wins in four matches.