KP Oli Cup cup: Madhesh State clinches title, Army stunned

KATHMANDU: Madhesh State has won the KP Oli Cup T-20 cricket title. Madhesh Cricket Club won the tournament after defeating Tribhuvan Army Club by 11 runs on Friday at the Pokhara Cricket Ground.

Chasing Madhesh’s 136-run target, Army scored only 124 runs losing seven wickets.

In the last over, when Army needed 24 runs to win, Vivek Yadav hit a four in the first ball, a six in the second, and a run in the third.

But, in the following three balls, Army’s Sompal Kami could only score one run off Madhesh’s Rupesh Singh.

Sompal scored 16 not out in 15 balls, while Vivek scored 25 not out in 14 balls.

Before that, captain Binod Bhandari scored 32 runs, Santosh Karki 16 runs, and Bhim Sarki 22 runs. Army’s other hitters were unable to reach double figures.

Harishankar Sah, the Madhesh captain, took four wickets in bowling. He scored 19 runs in four overs. Pradeep Paswan grabbed two wickets, but Parthik Yadav only took one.

Madhesh had won the toss and batted first, scoring 135 runs for the cost of eight wickets.

Vishal Patel added 49 not out for Madhesh. He hit 3 fours and 3 sixes in 32 balls. Captain Harishankar scored 27 runs, Himanshu Dutta scored 14 runs and Vishal Susling scored 10 runs.

Other batsmen of Madhesh got out without scoring runs in double figures.

Army’s Vivek Yadav and Shahav Alam took 3 wickets each in bowling. Sompal Kami and Basir Ahmed managed to take 1 wicket each.