Nepal overcome Scotland, give fans something to smile about

MUMBAI: With both Nepal and Scotland already out of the T20 World Cup, Tuesday night’s contest at the Wankhede was more about playing for pride.In the end, in a match that swayed from one team to an-other and went to the last over, Nepal held their nerve to over-haul the target of 171 with seven wickets and four balls to spare to sign off with their first win of the tournament.

After the win, Nepal players went on a lap of honour to oblige the fans who have filled the stands in all four matches they played in Mumbai, irre-spective of the results Nepal’s win was built on a 55-ball, 74-run association for the opening wicket between Kushal Bhurtel (43; 35b; 1x4, 4x6) and Aasif Sheikh (33; 27b; 2x6) before Dipendra Singh Airee (50*; 23b; 4x4, 3x6) and Gulshan Jha’s (24*; 17b; 1x4, 2x6) unbeaten 36-ball, 73-run stand for the third wicket took them over the line.Openers Bhurtel and Sheikh mixed caution with aggression, an approach that made sense as Nepal had failed to stitch open-ing stands against Italy and the West Indies previously. Against Scotland, the pair started to flex their muscles and took 23 runs off the fifth over, bowled by Mark Watt, to put Nepal on their way.Scotland, led by off-spinner Michael Leask (3/20) and left-arm spinner Oliver Davidson (0/31), pulled themselves back into the contest with Leask ac-counting for Bhurtel, Sheikh and skipper Rohit Paudel (16, 14b; 1x4) in each of his first three overs as Nepal scored just 63 runs between overs 6-15.

By the 15th over, Nepal were 112/3 and needed 59 off the last five overs. But Airee scored 19 of the 20 conceded by Leask in his last over to settle the nerves.SCORES: Nepal 171/3 in 19.2 overs (D Airee 50*, K Bhurtel 43; M Leask 3/30) beat Scotland 170/7 (M Jones 71; S Kami 3/25).