Subhendu Pandey scored an unbeaten half century to steer Royal Sports Club to a seven-wicket win over Leo Mahakali, while Taratal Cricket Club laboured to a five-run win over Nepal Tiger Sports Club in the Kohalpur City TWenty20 cricket tournament in Kohalpur on Tuesday.

Leo scored 121-8 before Royal Sports overcame the total for the loss of three wickets in 16.5 overs. Surendra Chand top scored for Leo with 26 runs. Basant Regmi, Nizamuddin Halwai and Moty Mourya claimed two wickets each for Royal Sports.

Royal Sports lost opener Rahul Singh (1) cheaply but Pandey and Aafaq Sheikh (38) put on a match-winning 83-run stand for the second wicket. Pandey remained unbeaten on 61, his 51-ball knock was studded with eight fours and two sixes. 

In the day’s another game, Taratal scored a modest 121 in 20 overs and restricted Nepal Tiger for 116-7. Four top-order batsman—Binod Bhandari (34), Naresh Budhayer (25), Sameer Acharya (13) and Saroj Basnet (10) helped build the total for Taratal. Siddhant Raj Shahi snared three, while Sunil Sunar and Abinash Bohra claimed two wickets each for Nepal Tigers.

In reply, Nepal Tigers fell just short of the target due to their snail-paced run chase. Top scorer Ayush Chitransh took 41 balls to make 39, while Anupam Singh scored 24 from 31 deliveries. 

Prakash KC was their next best contributor with 11. Ram Babu Gupta was the pick of the Taratal bowlers with figures of 4-26 while Lalit Bhandari took 2-14.