Janakpur Bolts won the Nepal Premier League (NPL) cricket title thanks to Lahiru Milantha's brilliant batting. On 87 runs by Milantha, Janakpur shocked the main contenders Sudurpaschim Royals by 5 wickets in the final held at the Trivi Cricket Ground in Kirtipur on Saturday.
Janakpur has completed the target of 185 runs with 4 balls to spare. After scoring 71 runs in 6 overs of power play, Janakpur reached the target by adding 105 runs in the first 10 overs.
Milantha completed his half-century in 31 balls. At the time when Milantha was on 65 runs, Sudurpaschim's captain Dipendrasingh Airi missed the chance of cut and bold . Milantha hit 9 fours and 4 sixes in 49 balls. Milantha scored an unbeaten 75 off 53 balls against Biratnagar Kings in the first match of NPL.
Milantha added 77 runs in 7 overs with Asif Sheikh to give Janakpur a great start. Asif, who was not able to concentrate much in the tournament, scored 33 runs with 4 fours and 2 sixes in 19 balls. Mohammad Mohsin got out for 9 runs off 8 balls. Jimmy Neesam was out for 4 and Akash Tripathi for 2 runs. 
Harsh Thakar scored 30 and Mayan Yadav remained unbeaten on 2 runs. Thacker played 24 balls and hit 2 sixes. Dipendra spent 40 runs in 4 overs and took 1 wicket. Zaib, Ishan Pandey and Scott Kuglen took 1 wicket each.
After Saif Zaib and Vinod Bhandari's century partnership, Sudurpaschim won the toss and batted first, losing 9 wickets and scoring 184 runs. After Jaib and Vinod added 117 runs in 12 overs for the first wicket, Sudurpaschim made a huge score.
After Jaib completed his half-century in 33 balls, Sudurpaschim made an aggressive start by scoring 97 runs without loss in the first 10 overs. In the 13th over, Jaib was given life for 62 runs. Sher Malla's long-on hit by Kishore Mahato was caught by him. 
In the same over, Kishore dismissed Jaib for 69 runs. Jaib hit 8 fours and 2 sixes in 43 balls. In the next over, Lalit Rajwanshi bowled another opener, Vinod Bhandari. Vinod scored 41 runs off 31 balls with 1 four and 3 sixes.
Harmit Singh hit 1 six off 8 balls and got out for 14 runs. Jimmy Neesum bowled Scott McMullen for 14 runs. He played 12 balls and hit 1 six. Mohammad Mohsin dismissed Dipendra and Arif Shaikh in one over. Dipendra who played 7 balls was dismissed for 9 and Arif was dismissed for 1 run. Scott Kuglen hit 2 fours off 10 balls and was dismissed for 13 runs. Kuglen and Naresh Budhaair (8) were dismissed by Kishore in the last over.
Kishore and Mohsin took 3 wickets each. Kishore spent 25 runs in 3 overs and Mohsin spent 40 runs in 4 overs. Although the batting of the top row of the Far West dominated the other bowlers of Janakpur, Lalit took 1 wicket with 1 maiden in 4 overs and spent only 15 runs. Nisam took 1 wicket after spending 44 runs in 4 overs.
Both teams did not change any players from the team they played in the last match. Sudurpaschim defeated Janakpur in Qualifier 1 and Janakpur defeated Karnali Yaks in Qualifier 2 and reached the final.
Sudoorpaschim defeated Janakpur twice in this competition and reached the final. Sudurpaschim won by 72 runs over Janakpur in the round robin league match. Even though Sudurpaschim was stopped at a score of 123-9, Janakpur, who came in reply, was bowled out for 51 runs in 12.1 overs. This score was the lowest score of NPL.
Janakpur was easily defeated by 8 wickets in Qualifier 1 and reached the Sudurpaschim final. Janakpur won the Qualifier 2 over Karnali Yaks by 2 wickets and confirmed the final meeting with Sudurpaschim.
