13th SAG: Nepal limited to bronze in men's cricket

Kathmandu–Nepal has won a bronze medal in the men's cricket tournament under the ongoing 13th South Asian Games (SAG). In the match held for the third position at the Tribhuvan University (TU) ground today, Nepal beat the Maldives by five wickets to secure the bronze. Nepal, in course of chasing the target of 95 runs posted by the Maldives, lost five wickets in 16.1 overs.

Aarif Sheikh played with the highest 32 runs in the match while captain Gyanendra Malla made a score of 22 runs followed by 15 runs by Rohit Poudel, 10 runs by Pawan Sarraff while Binod Bhandari contributed 12 runs to the team. In bowling, Umar Adam from the Maldives dismissed three batsmen. Nepal was invited to bat first after losing the toss and the Maldives was restricted to 94 runs at the loss of nine wickets in 20 overs.

Leem Shafeeg collected the highest 19 runs for his team followed by 17 from Mohamed Rishwan, 16 from captain Mohamed Mahfooz and 13 from Ameel Mauroof. In their attempts to limit the Maldivian team to a double digit run, Nepal's Lalit Narayan Rajbanshi took three wickets and Susan Bhari took two wickets.

Nepal lost its opening match with Sri Lanka by six wickets and won the second match against Bhutan by 141 runs. Earlier, it defeated Maldives by 84 runs, and was left with no possibility of winning gold after Bangladesh beat it by 44 runs. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are playing today for the gold.