Under-19 Asia cup: Nepal beat Afghanistan by just 1 wicket in nail-biting finish

New Delhi (The Uttam Hindu): After the brilliant bowling of Santosh Yadav, Unish Thakuri (three wickets each) and others, Naren Sood (26) and skipper Hemant Dhami (22 not out) all-round performance helped Nepal win the 10th ODI of the Under-19 Asia Cup on Tuesday. Defeated Afghanistan by one wicket. Chasing a small score of 123 runs, Nepal got off to a poor start and lost six wickets to reach the score of 54. Madan Yadav (one), Akash Tripathi (nine), Santosh Yadav (seven), Naren Bhatta (two), Roshan Bishwakarma (nine) and Uttam Magar (two) were out for runs. In such a crisis, a struggling innings by Arjun Kumal (21) and Narayan Sood (26) took Nepal to victory. Abhishek Tiwary scored (13) runs off 13 balls with a six and a four. After this, captain Hemant Dhami hit two fours off 33 balls (22 not out) and played an important innings of runs. Nepal scored 124 runs for 9 wickets in 41.3 overs and won the match by one wicket. AM Ghazanfar and Khatir Stanikzai took three wickets each for Afghanistan. Mahbub Khan and Abdul Aziz dismissed one batsman each.

Earlier today, Afghanistan won the toss and decided to bat first. Afghanistan, who came to bat, got off to a poor start and lost two wickets for two runs. Captain Mahbub Khan (0) was dismissed by Hemant Dhami while Uzairullah Niazai (0) was dismissed by Abhishek Tiwari. After this, Faisal Shinozada, who came to bat, tried to take over the innings. But Unish Thakur did not allow any batsman to stay on the pitch. Thakuri dismissed Hamza Khan (nine) in the 11th over. After this he dismissed Ejat Barakzai (one) lbw. After this, Ezzat Barkat Ibrahimzai (12) was dismissed by Abhishek Tiwari. Nazifullah Amiri (1), Naseer Khan (10), AM Ghazanfar (11), Khatir Stanikzai (15) got out after scoring runs. Faisal Shinozada scored the most runs (50) for the team. In front of Nepal's bowling attack, the entire Afghanistan team was limited to 123 runs in 35.4 overs. Santosh Yadav and Unish Thakuri took three wickets each for Nepal. Hemant Dhami and Abhishek Tiwari dismissed two batsmen each.