Nepal and the Netherlands set up the title showdown at the Tri-Nation Twenty20 International Series on Saturday after the Dutch and Malaysian’s rain-affected match ended in a tie in a D/L method on Wednesday.
After tying the match Netherlands collected five points to top the table with Nepal lying behind in second place with four points. Malaysia with one point are at the bottom of the table with a match in a hand. After the host booked the berth in the final, the last league match between Nepal and Malaysia on Thursday will be a dead rubber game.
Putting to bat first in the fifth league match at TU Cricket Ground, the Netherlands rode on to the half-century off Ben Cooper to post 107/4 in a rain truncated 13 overs match.
After the match was interrupted twice by a shower, Malaysia received a revised target of 92-runs in 10 overs. They, however, managed to collect with 91 for 4 in to tie the match.
The super over was not applied as a decider after the light shower interrupted the match twice to complete the cut-off time.
Malaysia, in the Duckworth-Lewis method, got the target of 120-runs in 13 overs. Opener Syed Aziz (26-ball 30) and Anwar Aruddin (17-ball 23), with their aggressive batting, smashed 56 without loss off six overs before the rain again interrupted the match for eight minutes.
Resuming the match with an eye on a revised target of 92 runs from 10 overs, Malaysia needed 17-runs off 12 balls after Virandeep Singh (6-ball 14) collected 15 runs clubbing three fours off Bas de Leede (1-22).
But Sebastian Braat (2-14) got rid of Singh in the next over conceding just one run with Malaysia requiring 16-run from nine deliveries.
Aminuddin Ramly (7-ball 9) hit a maximum in his first ball to bring back his team to the game. Malaysia then added nine runs in the penultimate over and needed seven runs from the last over.
But miserly Vivian Kingma (1-20) conceded five runs with two wide-balls to deny Malaysia their big win. Kingma also trapped Ramly in the penultimate ball to turn the table for his team.
Earlier, Malaysia opened their bowling onslaught with left-arm spinner Pavandeep Singh (1-26) sending Tobias Visse for a duck in the fourth ball.
Left-arm medium-pacer Muhammad Wafiq (2-13), then, got rid of two wickets in the fourth over to derail the Dutch for 22/3.
He trapped Vikramjeet Singh (1) in 3.1 over and made de Leede, whose heroics led the Dutch to chase their biggest total in T20I on Tuesday, go for a duck at the hand of Virandeep Singh (1-6) in the first slip in 3.3 over.
However, in-form Ben Cooper coupled with Captain Pieter Seelar kept run coming for the Netherlands adding 46 before the rain stopped the play in 10.2 overs.
After one hour and 45 minutes of rain interruption, the Netherlands resumed their batting from 68-3 with their innings reduced to 13 overs.
Seelar was bowled out by Virandeep in 11.4 overs after collecting 37 runs off 31 deliveries. He combined for 66 runs with Cooper for the third wicket.
Cooper took the score past 100 completing his ninth T20 International half-century with a stroke-filled 32-ball 54 knock. He hammered seven boundaries and two maximums.
Antonius Staal (5-ball 10) slammed six off the last ball to put 107 for 4 on the scoreboard.
Sharvin Muniandy conceded 35 runs in his three overs spell to be an expensive bowler for Malaysia. Anwar Rahman also spent 26 runs off his 12 deliveries.
Source : THE RISING NEPAL,
