Kuala Lumpur: The Indian U-19 cricket team succumbed to a shocking 19-run loss against underdogs Nepal in the U-19 Asia Cup at the Bayuemas Oval on Sunday.
Himanshu Rana, the skipper of the Indian side had won the toss and had sent Nepal to bat first. His plan yielded results as his bowlers to restrict them to just 185/8 in their 50 overs with Abhishek Sharma and Aditya Thakare grabbing two wickets each. Nepal skipper Dipendra Singh Airee was the best batsman for his team as he scored a resilient 88 but his best was yet to come.
The chase however didn’t go exactly how the Indians would have thought of. The Rahul Dravid coached side were bundled for 166 runs in 48.1 overs. Skipper Rana top-scored with 46 runs of 38 balls and he was followed by Manjot Kalra who scored 35 runs from 69 balls.
Skipper Dipendra Singh was once the top-performer for Nepal as he scalped four wickets conceding just 39 runs in the low-scoring encounter.
India who had won all five of their matches against Nepal earlier (two in U-19 World Cup and three in U-19 Asia Cup) succumbed to their only loss against their Asian neighbours.
This shocking loss is indeed a setback for Rahul Dravid’s men as they next face Bangladesh on Tuesday. Nepal also would lock horns with Malaysia on the same day. Despite this defeat, India continue to top Group A with two points with a NRR (net run rate) of 1.83.
Rana and his boys need to forget this loss and put up a better performance the next time around as they need to assure atleast a second-placed finish to make it to the semi-finals of the only tournament they are playing before the U-19 World Cup scheduled to be held in New Zealand from January 13-February 3.
Brief scores-
Nepal U-19- 185 for 8 in 50 overs (Dipendra Singh 88, Aditya Thakare 2/33, Abhishek Sharma 2/38) beat India U-19- 166 all out in 48.1 overs (Himanshu Rana 46; Dipendra Singh 4/39) by 19 runs