The Maldives Men’s National Cricket team lost today by 5 wickets against world number 12 team and host nation Nepal in the Bronze medal match of the South Asian Games Men’s T20 Cricket competition.
Nepal won the toss and chose to field first putting the Maldives openers, unchanged from the victory over Bhutan, Ahmed Hassan and Mohamed Rishwan into the middle. Rishwan made a good start firing 17 from 18 balls until he was clean bowled by Bhari. Ahmed Hassan followed him back to the pavilion in the next over for 6 runs.
A mini collapse happened at 35-3 with 3 wickets falling for 1 run until captain Mahfooz steadied the ship with 16 off 23 leaving Leem 19* and Ameel 13 to help Maldives reach a total of 94/9 off 20 Overs.
In reply, despite losing Paras Kadka in the 2nd over, Nepal built the victory foundations getting to 58/2 inside 10 Overs. However, Maldives were not finished there as a noticeably vocal field rallied for one more push for Bronze taking a further 3 wickets and it wasn’t until the 17th over that Paudel and Sarraf could reach the target of 95, finishing in 98/5. Adam Nasif was the pick of the Maldives bowlers with 3 wickets for 20 runs off his 4 overs.
