APF, which defeated Region No 8 (Pokhara) in the first match on Thursday, thrashed Region No 2 (Birgunj) by 76 runs on Friday at the Pulchowk Engineering College Ground, Lalitpur. APF elected to bat and reached 148/5 in the allotted 20 overs as Sharad Vesawkar scored an unbeaten 32 runs and Basant Regmi remained unbeaten on 26. [break]
Subash Khakurel blasted 29 runs off 15 balls and Gyanendra Malla scored 24 runs. Binod Das took two wickets for Birgunj while Arif Seikh, Ram Naresh Giri and Irshad Ahamed claimed a wicket each.
In reply, Birgunj managed only 72/8 in 20 overs. Amit Shrestha (26 runs) and Bikram Basnet (20 runs) were the only batsmen to reach double figures. Paras Khadka, Bhuwan Karki, Basanta Regmi and Shakti Gauchan claimed two wickets each for APF. Regmi was adjudged the man of the match for his all-round performance.
Nepalgunj defeated Region No 1 (Biratnagar) by six wickets at Pulchowk to register its second victory in the tournament. Nepalgunj had defeated Region No 7 (Janakpur) on Thursday.
Biratnagar elected to bat and scored 118/8 in 20 overs as Sunny Pun scored 36 runs off 40 balls. The second highest contribution to Biratnagar´s total was from 23 extras bowled by Nepalgunj. Nasir Ansari, Nijamuddin Halwai and Amar Singh Rautela claimed two wickets each while Akash Bista took a wicket.
Nepalgunj reached the target losing only four wickets as man-of-the-match Mahesh Chhetri scored 56 runs off 54 balls. Anupam Singh added 38 runs off 40 balls. Mehboob Alam claimed two wickets while Manoj Mandal and Manjeet Shrestha took one wicket each.
Following the results, APF and Nepalgunj have four points each in Group B of the tournament while Birgunj and Pokhara are level on two points.
Pokhara defeated Janakpur by 50 runs at the TU Cricket Ground, Kirtipur to collect two points. Electing to bat, Pokhara reached 186/4 in 20 overs as man-of-the-match Dipesh Khatri smashed an unbeaten 50 runs off 21 balls and opener Santosh Gurung scored 46 runs off 40 balls. Amrit Shrestha (33 runs) and Anil Gurung (23 runs) were the other major contributors to Pokhara´s total. Sanjog Karn, Raj Mohammed and Abhishek Jha claimed a wicket each.
Chasing the good total, Janakpur reached only 136/9. Jha hit 39 runs off 25 balls and Mohammed added 38 runs for Janakpur. Dipesh Shrestha, Nischal Pandey, Sushil Kandel and Krishna Bastola took two wickets each to restrict Janakpur and Shiva Shrestha also chipped in with one wicket.
Kathmandu registered a 42-run victory over Region No 9 (Mahendranagar) at the same venue on Friday. Kathmandu elected to bat and scored 148/7 in 20 overs as man-of-the-match Bibhatsu Thapa scored 40 runs and Niraj Bhattarai remained unbeaten on 33 runs off 15 balls. Lalit Bhandari, Binod Khatri and Sagar Joshi took two wickets each. Ravi Bhatta claimed a wicket for Mahendranagar, the newly-formed cricketing region making its debut in domestic cricket with the match.
In the run-chase, Mahendranagar managed only 106/5. Dipendra Airee (32 runs) and Surendra Chand (unbeaten 25 runs) were the top scorers for Mahendranagar. Prakash Bista, Som Pal Thapa, Niraj Basnet and Anil Karki took a wicket each.
After Friday´s victory, Kathmandu has four points from two matches in Group A. Kathmandu had defeated Region No 4 (Bhairahawa) on Thursday.
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