With Rs 2 million top prize at stake, Tribhuvan Army Club (TAC) will be seeking revenge against their departmental archrivals Nepal Police Club (NPC) in the title showdown of the country’s highest cash-prized cricket tournament— PM Cup One-Day National—on Thursday.

Tournament heavyweights Army are clashing with NPC for the third time in the final of a national-level tournament, but in a different format. On the previous two ocassions, NPC had prevailed over the Army team in the first two editions of Ruslan Twenty20 National cricket tournament.

TAC, however, have positioned themselves as the strong favouties in the 50-over format by sweeping the Policemen by seven wickets in the league stage match when spinner Sushan Bhari Shrestha wreaked havoc with a 6-16 to skittle out NPC for 109 runs. Army team skipper Binod Bhandari believes his team can get the better of NPC in the longer version of the game. “We lost twice in the final but Twenty20 is a different story. The 50-over game gives us ample of time to play according to the match situation,” said Bhandari adding his team knows the NPC players to be kept in check.

“Dilip (Nath), Dipendra (Singh Airee) and Kushal (Bhurtel) are looking in a good shape with the ball and we need to find ways to contain them,” added Bhandari. While Nath is the third leading scorer so far with 139 runs, Airee has been holding the middle order with modest contributions. Bhurtel played a crucial innings against Nepal Armed Police Force Club in the semi-finals with a half century to find form at a right time. Apart from the U-19 trio, NPC will also count on their openers Amit Shrestha and Sunil Dhamala along with Aarif Sheikh and explosive batsman Siddhant Lohani.

Experienced seamers Sompal Kami and Jitendra Mukhiya will be the key for the Armymen to contain NPC batsmen with spinners Shrestha and Sahab Alam also expected to do the job. TAC were clinical in their chase of 236 runs against Western Region in a second semi-final on Tuesday with two of their batsmen scoring half centuries. The four-wicket victory against Western was enough for NPC skipper Manjeet Shrestha to remain cautious.

“We know they have a long batting order and our bowlers will have a lot of job to do in order to give us an advantage,” said Shrestha.