Kathmandu, July 5: Nepal has won the title of the ACC U-16 East Zone Cup, defeating Singapore by two wickets in a tense final held on Saturday.
Chasing a target of 114 runs set by Singapore, Nepal achieved victory in 29 overs, losing 8 wickets. Joy Thapa played a crucial unbeaten knock of 24 runs, while Shivansh Bajgain contributed 20 runs.
At one point, Nepal was cruising at 40/1 but soon stumbled to 58/5 after losing quick wickets. A stabilizing partnership between Joy Thapa and Shubham Khanal brought the innings back on track.
After Shubham was dismissed for 16 with the score at 91/6, Nepal again wobbled to 92/8. However, Joy Thapa held firm and struck three consecutive boundaries, building a match-winning partnership with Abhay Yadav, who sealed the victory with a six.
Despite Kapish Venkataraman’s 4-wicket haul for Singapore, his efforts were not enough to secure a win. Yuvan Pandey claimed 2 wickets, while Aakash Teja and Vedansh Gupta took one apiece.
Earlier, Singapore won the toss and opted to bat first but was bowled out for 113 runs in 40.5 overs. Rohan Austin top-scored with 23 runs off more than 90 deliveries, while Rihan Naik made 15.
For Nepal, Abhay Yadav impressed with 3 wickets for 34 runs in 10 overs. Sushil Bahadur Rawal also claimed 3 wickets, while Shubham Khanal took 2 and captain Bipin Prasad Sharma picked up 1.
Nepal remained unbeaten throughout the tournament, including a group-stage win over Singapore. This victory adds to Nepal’s growing dominance in youth cricket, having previously won the East Zone Cup in 2023, and the ACC U-16 Eastern Region titles in 2017 and 2019.
People's News Monitoring Service