Kathmandu, January 19
The APF Club of the Armed Police Force has won the title of the Prime Minister’s Cup T20 Cricket Tournament. In the final held on Wednesday, another departmental team defeated Nepal Police Club by 21 runs and won 500,000 rupees. The runner-up police have received Rs 300,000.
Chasing the target of 158 runs at the Kirtipur-based Tribhuvan Cricket Ground, Pusil lost seven wickets in the allotted 20 overs and managed to score only 136 runs. Captain Dipendra Singh Airy, who lost three important wickets for 36 runs, tried to manage his innings. He shared 37 runs with Arif Sheikh for the fourth wicket. He shared 56 runs with Dilip Nath for the fifth wicket. But other batsmen could not run.
Dipendra, who was out in the last over, scored 65 off 54 balls with three fours and two sixes.
Dilpanath scored 23, Arif Sheikh 12 and Anil Kumar Sah 10 runs. Others could not add double digits.
APF’s Avinash Bohara and Kishore Mahato bowled brilliantly in the death over to stop the police from reaching the target. Mahato took 3 wickets. Avinash Bohra, Deepak Bohra and Amar Rautela took one wicket each.
APF, which had earlier been invited to bat after losing the toss, also had a bad start. Adding 81 runs for the loss of 6 wickets, his innings was handled by the lower order batsman and he lost all his wickets in 19.5 overs and scored 157 runs. Captain Sarad Bheshavkar scored 19 runs while Bhuvan Karki added 17 runs. Amar Rautela, who came to bat at number nine, struck two fours and three sixes in 15 balls and scored a maximum of 29 runs.
Earlier, Lokesh Bam added 27 runs in 15 overs while Sandeep Jora scored 24 runs.
Police’s Dipendra Singh Airy and Sagar Dhakal took three wickets each. Gulshan Jha took 2 wickets and Arif Sheikh and Yogendra Singh Karki took 1 wicket each.
By Karuna Thapa
