Man-of-the-match Singh claimed five wickets in his 10-over spell with two maiden overs giving away 20 runs to restrict Kathmandu to a miserable total of 72 runs in 26.1 overs. In reply, Biratnagar achieved the target in 15.4 overs losing three wickets. [break]
It was the first victory of Biratnagar from second match in group A after it shared points with Region No 5 (Nepalgunj) as the first match was rain washed on Wednesday. The result lifted Biratnagar on top of table with three points while Kathmandu lies in the third place without any point. Kathmandu has played only one match and Region No 6 (Baitadi) is yet to play.
Region No 4 (Bhairahawa) and Region No 2 (Birgunj) have already secured semifinal spots as the winner and runner up respectively of group B.
On Thursday, opener batsman Sharad Khadka scored the highest 18 off 22 runs for Kathmandu that elected to bat first. Khadka´s innings included two fours. No 10 batsman Ram Jaiswal was the second highest scorer hitting 17 runs. Unbeaten Jaiswal hit two fours facing 24 deliveries. Pawan Shrestha (11) was the other batsman for Kathmandu to score double-digit runs as other batsmen fell cheaply.
Amit Dahal of Biratnagar claimed two scalps while Kalicharan Yadav and Nighab Khatiwada had share in one wicket each.
Biratnagar´s third order batsman Suman Shrestha was the highest scorer with 24 runs to his name. Shrestha hit three fences. Earlier opening batsman Niraj Shah played a patient innings scoring 21 off 37 before being bowled out as third wicket in 14.5 overs with 3/67 at board. Amol Dash (9) contributed for Biratnagar while Mayanand Chaudhary (5) and Rohit Singh (0) remained unbeaten.
Prajesh Bahadur Singh, Ujjwal Thapa and Ram Jaiswal of Kathmandu claimed one wicket each.
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