Nepal's previous poor performances were in Namibia in December 2022 and Canada in September last year.
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Nepal has set a negative record by failing to collect any points in a series of World Cup League 2 cricket. Nepal has failed to collect any points in a series of League 2 for the first time after losing to UAE by 4 wickets in a match held at the ICC Academy in Dubai on Wednesday.
Nepal lost 2-2 to the US and UAE in Dubai. Earlier, Nepal had managed to collect only 1-1 points in its visits to Namibia in December 2022 and Canada in September last year. This was Nepal's weakest performance in a League 2 series.
But Nepal, who is under the coaching of Stuart Law, performed even worse in Dubai this time. Nepal had lost to the US by 106 and 4 wickets respectively and to the UAE by 5 wickets in the previous match. The US won all 4 matches in this series and swept it cleanly, while the UAE won 2 out of 4 matches.
Nepal, who came in to bat after losing the toss, scored 239 runs in the stipulated 50 overs for the loss of 9 wickets. Nepal achieved this score by adding 46 runs in the last 4 overs. Kushal Malla was dismissed for 45 runs in 51 balls, hitting 1 four and 3 sixes. He was dismissed in the second to last ball. Lalit Rajbanshi then hit a boundary on the last ball of the match. Sandeep Lamichhane remained unbeaten on 15 runs with 2 fours in 10 balls.
Nepal did not start well. Kushal Bhurtel was out for 2 runs in 9 balls. Another opener, Asif Sheikh, had a 74-run partnership with Bhim Sarki for the second wicket. Asif's run-out was Nepal's first misfortune. Asif scored 34 runs with 4 fours in 48 balls. Bhim missed his half-century by 2 runs. He scored 48 runs with 7 fours in 68 balls.
Captain Rohit Poudel could only score 2 runs. With these 2 runs, he became the first Nepali player to score 2,000 runs in One-Day Internationals. Arif Sheikh and Dipendra Singh Airi shared a 44-run partnership. Nepal suffered another setback when Dipendra was run out for 37 runs. He hit 3 fours and 1 six in 43 balls.
Arif scored 30 runs with 2 fours in 54 balls. Opening bowler Junaid Siddiqui prevented Nepal from scoring a big score by dismissing Arif and Karan KC in consecutive balls. Along with Siddiqui, Mohammad Jawadullah and Dhruv Parashar took 2 wickets each for UAE.
Mohammad Shahdad scored 96 runs, taking UAE to 243 runs in 5 balls. With the score tied, Zahir Ali hit a four in the first ball of the last over. Player of the Match Shahdad hit 6 fours and 3 sixes in 123 balls. With UAE 16 runs away from victory, Shahdad was caught behind the wicket by Karan KC.
Karan had given Nepal hope by dismissing Aryansh Sharma in the first over. Another opener and captain Alisan Sarafu was dismissed by Nandan Yadav for 18 runs. Shoaib Khan scored 29 runs in 52 balls.
Shahdad and former captain Mohammad Wasim put on a 147-run partnership for the fourth wicket to guide UAE to victory. Wasim scored 76 runs off 73 balls, hitting 4 fours and 3 sixes, before being bowled by Sandeep Lamichhane. Harshit Kaushik scored 13 runs. Karan took 3 wickets for Nepal.
