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Twenty-20 series: Nepal go down to UAE by 21 runs
Nepal suffered a 21-run defeat at the hands of United Arab Emirates in their first Twenty-20 International of the three-match series on Thursday.Sanjaya Lama
Nepal suffered a 21-run defeat at the hands of United Arab Emirates in their first Twenty-20 International of the three-match series on Thursday.
Chasing the 154-run target, Nepal scored 132 runs losing seven wickets in the allotted 20 overs.
Though Sandeep Jora, who made his debut in the T-20 International on Thursday, scored half century, his contribution was not sufficient for Nepal to win the match. He made highest 53 runs off 46 balls hitting three boundaries and a six.
Sompal Kami made 27 runs off 19 balls and skipper Paras Khadka contributed 25 runs off 25 balls while other batsmen could not make runs in double digit.
UAE’s Mohammad Naveed, Sultan Ahmed and Zahoor Khan claimed two wickets each.
Read: Paras powers Nepal to historic ODI series win against the UAE
Shaiman Anwar top-scored 59 runs off 38 balls, while Muhammad Usman, CP Rizwan and Mohammad Boota chipped in 30, 22, 20 runs respectively for UAE.
Nepal's leg-spin sensation Sandeep Lamichanne and Basanta Regmi took two wickets each, and Sompal Kami and Abinash Bohara claimed one wicket each.
Sandeep Jora and Abinash Bohara had also made their debut in the T-20 international today.
Earlier, Nepal had won the One Day International series 2-1 for their historic win in Dubai.
Binod Bhandari, Arif Sheikh, Lalit Narayan Rajbansi and Pawan Sarraf, who had played in the One Day International series, have not played first match of T-20 against UAE.
Read: Rohit Paudel becomes youngest batsman to record ODI fifty
The T20 International is also Nepal’s first in four years. They were scheduled to play the Netherlands in a Triangular Twenty20 Series at the Lord’s in July last year but the match was washed out due to rain. Nepal’s previous Twenty20 International came four years ago when they played Papua New Guinea in the 2015 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifiers in Ireland and Scotland.
The second game of the three-match Twenty20 International series will be held on Friday.
Read: Nepal take aim at Twenty20 series
Scorecard from ESPN crickinfo