Nepal lost to Hong Kong by 6 wickets in the first match of ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Asia Region. Hong Kong’s opening batter Mariko Hill batted brilliantly and added 44 runs off 42 balls to help the team remain unbeaten.
Nepal managed to score only 104 runs for the loss of 3 wickets after losing the toss. With the wickets of the opposition players to be taken as soon as possible, Hong Kong kept the game in their favor with restrained batting.
Nepal’s Kavita Kunwar, Sita Rai and Sabnam Rai took one wicket each and Karuna Bhandari run out one player.
The Hong Kong team won the game before playing 12 balls.
Nepal is ranked 14th and Hong Kong is ranked 25th in the T20 rankings.
Nepal lost 3 wickets and scored 104 runs with the help of unbeaten 40 runs of Sita Rana Magar.
Sita Rana Magar, who is also the vice-captain, remained unbeaten on 40 off 58 balls with the help of four fours. She shared 81 runs for the third wicket with Indu Burma, which is an excellent partnership for the third wicket of a Nepali woman.
Indu was dismissed for 31 off 36 balls with three fours. Earlier in the official T20I competition for Nepal, Sita and Indu shared a record 88 runs for the second wicket against Qatar.
Nepal’s early player Kavita Kunwar was out in the second ball of the first over without opening an account. Captain Ruvina Chhetri, who faced the last one ball, added two unbeaten runs.
Before the World Cup qualifiers, Nepal had visited Bangladesh and Qatar.
Nepal had won all the three matches of the first T20I series against Qatar and captured the series.
Similarly, Bangladesh had won two out of three friendly matches against the academy.
