Spinner Sushil Kandel produced a magical bowling with nine maiden overs in his 10-over spell as Nepal crushed Saudi Arabia by nine wickets but the victory was still not enough to win them the ACC U-19 Premier title in Kelab Aman, Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.

Afghanistan successfully defended the title, easing past hosts Malaysia by eight wickets in the round robin league tournament where they finished unbeaten with 10 points from five games.

Nepal, who not only needed a huge-margin victory but also wanted Afghanistan to lose heavily to Malaysia on Thursday, once again finished second with eight points from four games.

Malaysia ended up third with six points with United Arab Emirates (four), Kuwait (two) and winless Saudi Arabia finishing fourth, fifth and sixth respectively.

While Afghanistan once again underlined their domination in non-Test playing age-group cricket tournament with their fourth consecutive U-19 title, the top three, according to the Malaysian Cricket Association, also joined the Asian Test-playing nations in the ACC U-19 Asia Cup.

In the match against Saudi Arabia, Kandel’s phenomenal bowling was the highlight of the day with none of the Saudi Arabia bowlers managing to score against him for 55 balls in a row. His performance saw Saudi Arabia bundled out for just 55 in 33.2 overs.

Nepal reached 56-1 in nine overs with opener Sunil Dhamala smashing 34 off 20 with three fours and two sixes in his unbeaten innings, while skipper Raju Rijal remained unbeaten on 14 off 20 with two fours. Another opener Shankar Rana (four) was dismissed cheaply but proved a calm ally to Dhamala sharing 33-run opening wicket stand.

Earlier, opener Faisal Khan top scored for Saudi Arabia with 19 off 14 balls with two fours and a six. No 11 batsman Zain was their next best scorer, scoring 11 from four balls with a boundary and six. Both of Zain’s big shots came against Kandel in the final over of Saudi innings.

Kandel conceded his first run of the day in the 56th ball of the innings when Zain hit him for a boundary. The tail ender then smashed Kandel for a six in the final ball. Dhamala also starred with the ball picking up 2-3 from six overs, while Prem Tamang took 2-9 from 4.2 overs.