The men’s national cricket team of Nepal’s losing streak and dreadful form continues in the ICC Cricket World Cup League 2 in Canada.
They crashed to a third straight defeat in another unimpressive and unconvincing performance at the hands of Canada.
The Canadians flexed their muscles and dominated the proceedings in every department of the game on Monday.
They combined consistent batting and bowling, coupled with tidy fielding to coast to a comfortable five wickets victory.
This was Canada’s third consecutive victory in the tournament. They take on Oman in the final match.
The defeat is a big jolt for Nepal. It was another disappointing outing for the Rhinos as they failed to live up to their promise.
Going into the must win fixture, Nepal had to bat rock solid and amass a fighting total to put themselves in the driver’s seat in order to have a realistic chance to be in the winning column.
Despite the need to put in a vastly improved batting performance, the batters faltered and stumbled big yet again. For the third straight match they struggled and under performed.
The decision to bat first did not pay off for them. The batters made a total mess of batting, miserably failing to score. They were all out for 181 runs with the help of 22 extra runs in 46.1 overs. For the second time in the competition they failed to bat their full 50 overs.
The batting lineup was exposed and fragile. In fact, what we witnessed was a display of reckless, technically flawed and uncommitted batting as batters headed to the pavilion one after another in quick succession without making any significant contribution.
All in all, it was a total batting disaster and the worst performance of the series by Nepal.
The entire top and middle order batters bites the dust. Of the six batters, only two scored 10 runs each,with the rest failing to reach double figures.
Once again the tailenders stepped up and batted doggedly despite enormous pressure. They steadied the innings and were able to post a decent total under challenging circumstances.
Pacer Gulshan Jha led the charge by scoring a delightful 34.He is certainly developing into an excellent all rounder.
Ace leg spinner Sandeep Lamichhane batted responsibly and aggressively for his well made 49 runs. He topped the scoring for his team.He was unlucky to miss the half century mark by a run.
He had a fairly good spell with the ball also, claiming two wickets.
The other two quickies Sompal Kami and Karan KC made useful contributions, scoring 21 and 34 respectively.
Though speedster Karan KC gave his team a perfect start by taking an early wicket of opener Aaron Johnson for a duck, however, the pair of Navneet Dhaliwal(86) and Pargat Singh(64) defied the bowlers to put their team on the path to victory by sharing a century partnership.
They surpassed Nepal’s total in the 42nd over to seal the match.
To make matters worse, the fielding was sloppy at times. Dhaliwal’s dropped catch proved costly for Nepal.
As long as Nepal’s batting continues to flop and batters fail to turn things around quickly, there will be no end to frustration, humiliation, setbacks, ignominy and agony for both players and
fans alike.
It is no exaggeration to say that the team is going through a batting crisis at the moment.