Sudurpaschim Royals became the second team to win the third consecutive victory in the Nepal Premier League (NPL). The Royals defeated the Lumbini Lions by 45 runs at the Kirtipur-based Trivi Maidan on Saturday and submitted a strong claim with their third consecutive victory.

Royals have overtaken Janakpur Bolts in run rate who have won three consecutive games. On the contrary, Lumbini Lions, led by the captain of the national cricket team, Rohit Paudel, lost for the third consecutive match. This has made Lumbini's journey to the playoffs difficult.

Having a target of 188 runs, Lumbini lost 9 wickets in 20 overs and managed to score only 142 runs. Lumbini could not hold on after Scott Kuglen dismissed Arjun Saud lbw on the first ball of the innings. The New Zealand fast bowler also dismissed another opener, Unmukt Chand, lbw for 4 runs.

Another foreign bowler Brandon McMullen of Scotland dismissed Rohit (5), Tom Moores (7) and Saad Bin Zafar (0) as Lumbini reached 19-5 within 5 overs. Sandeep Zora scored 20 runs with 1 six off 26 balls. Dinesh Adhikari was out for 14, Surya Tamang for 7 runs and Ramon Simmonds for zero.

Vivek Yadav scored 77 runs and remained unbeaten. He played 54 balls and hit 3 fours and 7 sixes. Saif Zaib and McMullen took 3 wickets each for Lumbini. Jaib spent 33 runs in 4 overs and McMullen 21 runs in 4 overs. Kuglen took 2 wickets for 19 runs in 4 overs and Avinash Bohra took 1 wicket.

Earlier, the opener Jaib scored 90 runs in the difficult conditions of the morning and after losing the toss, Sudurpaschim lost 4 wickets and scored 187 runs in 20 overs. English batsman Zaib hit 6 fours and 5 sixes in 61 balls. He got out in the 18th over and shared 49 runs in 6.3 overs with Vinod Bhandari for the first wicket, 57 runs in 43 balls with McMullane for the second wicket and 53 runs in 24 balls with captain Dipendra Singh Airey.

Vinod scored 17 with 2 fours in 13 balls, McMullen scored 23 runs in 20 balls with 1 four and six. Dipendra remained unbeaten on 39 runs off 19 balls with 4 fours and 2 sixes. Arif Shaikh was dismissed on the very first ball he faced. From Lumbini, Simmonds took 2 wickets for 32 runs in 4 overs, Rohit and Vivek took 1 wicket each. 

Karnali Bhagyamani

Karnali Yaks beat Biratnagar Kings by 7 runs in a 'low scoring' match. Having a target of 134 runs, Biratnagar lost 8 wickets and scored 126 runs. Biratnagar needed 15 runs to win in the last over. However, Nandan Yadav gave only 7 runs to win Karnali. 

Nandan took 3 wickets for 19 runs in 4 overs. Devrehate spinner Vipin Sharma spent 20 runs in 4 overs, captain Sompal Kami, William Bosisto and Yunish Thakuri took 1 wicket each. Nicholas Kritan scored the highest 40 runs from Karnali.

Canadian captain Kritan hit 4 fours and 1 six off 39 balls. Opener Lokesh Bam scored 19 off 9 balls with 1 four and 2 sixes and Deepak Bohra scored 18 runs off 13 balls with 1 six. Martin Guptill 4, Akib Ilyas 8, Narine Bhatt 7, Basir Ahmed 8, Chris Soule were dismissed for 5 runs. Pratish GC 7 and captain Sandeep Lamichhane remained unbeaten on 6 runs.

After Pratish bowled a sensational last over, Biratnagar bowled out Karnali for 133 runs. After Pratish took 3 wickets without costing any runs in the last over, Karnali lost the toss and came into bat and got all out after playing 20 overs. In the last over, Pratish dismissed Jeesan Maqsood for 2 and Nandan and Vipin for nil while Yunish was run out. 

Pratish also became the first Nepali player to dismiss Indian star batsman Shikhar Dhawan in NPL. He bowled Dhawan for 5 runs. Pratish spent 17 runs keeping 1 maiden in 4 overs. Dhawan, playing his last match in the tournament, scored an unbeaten half-century against Kathmandu Gurkhas and was dismissed by foreign players in the other two matches.

After Chadwick Walton, another foreign player of Karnali, was dismissed by Sol for 1 run, William Bosisto and Dev Khanal improved the position of Karnali by sharing 102 runs in 79 balls for the third wicket. Biratnagar itself was to blame for Karnali reaching here. Subwas Bhandari on the ball of Pratish managed to drop the catch of Dev, while Dev was playing for 2 runs.

Dev scored 53 runs off 48 balls and Bosisto scored 66 runs off 49 balls. Dev hit 4 fours and 2 sixes and Bosisto, who got out in the 19th over, hit 5 fours and 3 sixes. Basir dismissed Dev and Gulshan Jha (0) in consecutive balls. Ilyas dismissed Arjun Gharti for 1 run. Karnali lost 5 wickets without any runs in the end. 

If Dhawan will return

Indian star Dhawan has completed his NPL journey after playing four matches. He came to Kathmandu after agreeing to play 4 games for Karnali Yaks. NPL thanked Dhawan through their social media. He will now play in a veteran tournament in Surat, India from December 12.

Karnali, who dropped Dhawan, has won 2 out of 4 matches and lost 2. In the first match against Janakpur Bolts, Dhawan scored 14 runs and was bowled by Canadian bowler Harsh Thackeray. Against Kathmandu Gurkhaz, he scored an unbeaten 72 off 51 balls with 4 fours and 5 sixes.