Samjhana Khadka leads Nepal to a historic win in the Asia Cup opener

cricnepal Staff

July 19, 2024, 2 min read

The Nepalese women’s team have bagged a historic win in the ACC Women’s Asia Cup opener. Nepal defeated UAE by six wickets to register their first-ever win in the Asia Cup history. Samjhana Khadka played an outstanding knock to lead Nepal in the chase.

Following a decent total of 116, Nepal completed the chase in 16.1 overs, losing four wickets. Courtesy, opener Samjhana Khadka who managed to score more than 80% of Nepal’s total runs. Samjhana yielded a brisk start, hitting boundaries in a regular intervals.

Nepal lost Sita Rana Magar (7) as their first wicket, followed by Kabita Kunwar (2) and Indu Barma (6). However, Samjhana kept going and continued scoring runs. Rubina Chhetri scored 10 whilst Puja remained unbeaten for seven runs. Samjhana herself scored a boundary to ensure Nepal’s win. She scored not out 72 runs from 45 balls with the help of 11 fours.

Nepal will now play against Pakistan and India on 21 and 23 June respectively.

Earlier, invited to bat first at Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium, UAE finished their allotted 20 overs at 115/8.

Nepal picked up three wickets in the powerplay overs, sending back all three top-order batters. Esha Oza was run out for ten whilst Theertha Satish and Rinitha Rajith could not do any special. Samaria was dismissed for 13 runs as UAE were 46/4 in the eighth over.

Kavisha and Khusi then shared 32 runs for the fifth wicket to boost UAE’s inning. Kavisha was dismissed for 22 whereas Khusi top-scored with 36 runs. Nepal conceded 12 runs from the 18th over. However, They gave away just nine runs from the last two overs to restrict UAE to 115.

Indu Barma was the pick of a bowler for Nepal. She picked up three wickets and ended up with a figure 4-0-19-3. Kabita Joshi, Sabnam Rai and Kritika Marasini also grabbed one wicket each.

Nepal Women Samjhana Khadka