Nepal Crushes Indonesia by 370 Runs in U-16 East Zone Cricket

Nepal continued its dominant run in the ACC Men’s U-16 East Zone Cricket tournament, defeating Indonesia by a massive 370 runs in their third match, thanks to a brilliant century by opener Prashiddha Jaisi and a six-wicket haul by captain Bipin Prasad Sharma.

The match took place at the Selangor Turf Club in Kuala Lumpur. Batting first after losing the toss, Nepal scored a record 420 runs for 5 wickets in 50 overs, setting a massive 421-run target.

This is Nepal’s highest-ever total in a 50-over match across all age groups and also the highest team total in the tournament so far.

In reply, Indonesia were bowled out for just 50 runs in 24.3 overs. Only Kavin Neeraj (15) and Divit Nanda (14) reached double figures. Nepal’s skipper Bipin Sharma was the star with the ball, taking 6 wickets for just 12 runs in 7.3 overs. Shubham Khanal and Sugam Budhathoki grabbed one wicket each.

With the bat, Prashiddha Jaisi scored a brilliant 132 runs off 114 balls, smashing 15 fours and 1 six. Raunak Srivastava contributed 88 runs off 71 balls, including 8 fours and 2 sixes, while Parimarjan Yadav played a quickfire innings of 71 from 28 balls, hitting 4 fours and 8 sixes. Joy Thapa also added 57 runs off 41 balls.

Jaisi and Yadav gave Nepal a solid start with a 130-run opening partnership, followed by a 148-run stand between Jaisi and Raunak for the third wicket.

For Indonesia, Ketut Dharma Putra took 2 wickets, while Kavin Neeraj, Mahendra Aji, and Rehan Riza took one each.

With this win, Nepal remains unbeaten in Group A with 3 wins from 3 matches, collecting 6 points and sitting at the top of the table. Earlier, Nepal defeated Singapore by 6 wickets and Japan by 9 wickets.

Although Singapore also has 6 points from 4 matches, Nepal leads the table on net run rate. Japan and Indonesia have 2 points each, while Bhutan is yet to win.

Nepal’s next match is against Bhutan. The top two teams from each group will qualify for the semi-finals.