Saumy Pandey's magic along with skipper Uday Saharan and Sachin Dhas's 215-run stand powered the defending champions India to a comfortable 132-run victory over Nepal and sealed their spot in the ongoing U-19 World Cup semi-finals on Friday at Mangaung Oval. India continued to impose their dominance in South Africa even after Nepal's Aakash Chand and Durgesh Gupta showed resilience to hold onto the final wicket.
Saumy with his left-arm spin weaved magic and scalped a four-wicket haul to hand India early control as Nepal tried to chase down India's target of 298. Raj Limbani broke Nepal's sturdy 49-run opening stand between Deepak Bohara (22) and Arjun Kumal (26). Saumy from that point took charge and ran through Nepal's middle order.
As Nepal slipped to 77/7, skipper Dev Khanal (33) tried to wage a lone battle but eventually got bested by Saumy's spin craft. The unbeaten last wicket stand between, Aakash and Durgesh lasted for 67 balls which saw them put up 45 runs on the board. However, their efforts were not enough to save their side from the jaws of defeat.
Recapping the first innings, India Under-19 skipper Uday won the toss and elected to bat first. Batters Adarsh Singh and Arshin Kulkarni came out to open the innings for team India. Both put on a partnership of 26 runs before Adarsh was dismissed for 21 runs in the fifth over by Gulshan Jha.
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Uday Saharan plays a captain's knock to guide India to a formidable total:
Priyanshu Moliya came to the pitch next. Both the batters built a small partnership of 35 runs between Moliya and Arshin before the former was run out after scoring just 19 runs at the score of 61 runs.
India lost the third wicket when Arshin was dismissed when the team's score was 62 runs. Uday also slammed a century. He was dismissed by Gulshan after scoring 100 runs from 107 balls with nine boundaries with India's score reading 295 at that time.
The highest wicket-taker for Nepal was their right-arm seamer Gulshan Jha who snapped three wickets in his spell of 10 overs where he conceded 56 runs. One wicket was grabbed by the other speedster Aakash Chand who leaked 65 runs in his spell of 10 overs.
Brief Score: India 295/8 in 50 overs (Sachin Dhas 116, Uday Saharan 100; Gulshan Jha 3/56) vs Nepal 165/9 (Dev Khanal 33; Saumy Pandey 4-29, Arshin Kulkarni 2-18).
