Sunday, January 31, 2016

India, Nepal Enter the Quarter Finals of the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup

India and Nepal from Group D progressed through to the Quarter-Finals of the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup 2016 being played in Bangladesh.

Nepal U19s defeat Ireland U19s by 8 wickets

Ireland won the toss and elected to bat first but struggled against a disciplined Nepal attack. They lost both their openers by the 18th over with the score on 42. Sandeep Lamichhane, a right arm leg break bowler then proceeded to wreak havoc on the Irish U19 side with his spin bowling.

He first dismissed Gary McClintock in the 23rd over and then returned to claim a hat trick in the 32nd over of the Irish innings when he had Lorcan Tucker caught at mid-wicket off the fourth ball, Adam Dennison caught behind off the fifth ball and then clean bowled Fiachra Tucker to secure his hat-trick and sparked wild celebrations.

Ireland were reeling at 92-8 in the 39th over but a 30 by Harry Tector carried them to 131 in their allocated 50 overs. Lamichhane returned with stunning figures of 5-27 off his 10 overs while all-rounder Dipendra Singh Airee claimed 2-18 in his 7 overs.

Nepal lost their opener Sandeep Sunar off the very first ball of the chase but Yogendra Singh Karki’s unbeaten 61 and his partnerships of 55 with Sunil Dhamala and 77 with Aarif Sheikh sealed the match for Nepal in the 26th over.

India U19s defeat New Zealand U19s by 120 runs

New Zealand won the toss and inexplicably sent in India to bat first on a pitch that was expected to get more difficult bat on. India slipped to 19-2 in the 6th over and the going was slow for India but Rishabh Pant and Sarfaraz Khan stabilised the innings with fluent half centuries. Pant fell for 57 in the 27th over but Sarfaraz carried on with Armaan Jaffer. Sarfaraz made a very good 74 off just 80 balls before he fell playing a cute shot.

India slipped to 165-5 but sensible batting by Armaan Jaffer and Mahipal Lomror took India to 258 off their 50 overs. Armaan and Lomror made 46 and 45 respectively. For the Kiwis Zak Gibson snared three wickets in his 10 overs.

New Zealand had a horrid start to their innings as fast bowler Avesh Khan doomed the Kiwi top order with his high impact bowling as he snared their top 4 to leave New Zealand tottering at 16-4 in the 11th over. There was no way that the Indian team could have lost the match after the dream start and they soon slumped to 88-8. They would get bowled out for just 138 in the 32nd over to crash out of the U19 World Cup. Mahipal Lormor scalped 5 wickets in his 7.3 overs while giving away 47 runs while Avesh took 4 for 32 in his 10 in the process hurtling India through to the Quarter Finals.

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.

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