Nepal easily defeated Bhutan in the final match of the group stage in the ACC Men's U-16 Eastern Regional Cricket Tournament. In today's match, Nepal defeated Bhutan by a wide margin of 298 runs.
Nepal won the toss and batted first at the Selangor Turf Club in Malaysia.
Nepal scored 358 runs for the loss of five wickets with the help of Raunak Srivastava's century in the scheduled 50-over match. Srivastava contributed 168 runs. He hit five sixes and 16 fours while playing 132 balls.
Similarly, Joy Thapa scored an unbeaten 61, Shivans Bajgai scored 54 runs and Sugam Budhathoki scored 35 runs. On the bowling side, Bhutan's Sanjay Dorje took three wickets and Tenzin Lode took one wicket. Chasing a huge target of 359 runs, Bhutan scored only 60 runs losing 9 wickets in 32.4 overs.
For Bhutan, Sujan Dawa scored 14 runs and Uyog Chofel scored 10 runs. Bhutan's last batter did not come to the crease. On the bowling side, captain Bipin Prasad Sharma for Nepal took 4 wickets with 7 runs in 10 overs. Similarly, Sachin Bhatt and Suyog Bhattarai took two wickets each. Nepal has won all the four games of the group stage and has entered the semi-finals by being at the top of Group A.
Singapore has also reached the semi-finals by being second in that group. Similarly, from Group B, Hong Kong was at the top and Malaysia was at the second place and entered the semi-finals. Nepal will now play Malaysia in the semi-finals on Thursday. Nepal is the defending champion of the tournament.
Nepal won the title by defeating Malaysia in the finals of the tournament held in 2023. 10 countries including Nepal participated in the ongoing tournament organized by the Asian Cricket Council (ACC). Singapore, Indonesia, Bhutan and Japan along with Nepal were in Group 'A' and Hong Kong, Maldives, Thailand and Myanmar were in Group 'B' along with host Malaysia.
