Mumbai: Dipendra Singh Airee produced a masterful innings that powered Nepal to their first victory in their last game of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup against Scotland beating the latter by seven wickets, at the Wankhede Stadium here on Tuesday.
Chasing a competitive 171 for a win, Nepal were in a tricky position at 98/3 when they lost skipper Rohit Paudel but Airee completely took the game away from the Scots with a brilliant half-century (50 off 23 balls) that ensured Nepal gave their teeming fans something to cheer about at the Wankhede as they topped the Scotland total at 171/3 in 19.2 overs.
Nepal batters were resilient and gutsy with openers Kushal Bhurtel and Aasif Sheikh putting on a 74-run opening partnership but the required rate was always climbing.
Bhurtel and Sheikh struck 43 and 33 respectively while skipper Rohit Paudel didn’t last long either getting out for 16 with Nepal’s chase looking tricky.
However, Airee was making all the difference with his belligerent innings that put the pressure back on Scotland.
Earlier, Scotland were off to a flying start reaching 52/0 in six overs with Michael Jones going berserk getting to 34 with five fours and a six at a strike rate of 170.
Munsey provided able support with 15 off 16 balls scoring three fours.
Nepal bowlers were struggling with their line and length with Dipendra Singh Airee and Sompal Kami going at eight runs per over.
Skipper Rohit Paudel and Sandeep Lamichhane took over the proceedings for Nepal but Scotland’s approach remained the same as Jones and Munsey kept going strong.
Jones got his fifty in 31 balls with six fours and two sixes but Munsey fell off the last ball of the 10th over to Paudel as Scotland reached 80/1 after 10 overs.
Nandan Yadav and Kushal Bhurtel also tried to stop Scotland in their tracks but were unable to fetch any wickets as the Scots reached 118/1 in 14 overs and looked good for more.
Jones and McMullen were stitching together a partnership that was lending a fair amount of momentum to the Scotland innings.
There was a sigh of relief in the Nepal camp when Kami finally got the wicket of Jones castling him for 71 in the 15th over and then he doubled that up on the fourth ball of the same over dismissing Brandon McMullen caught and bowled for 25.
In the 17th over, Scotland skipper Richie Berrington upped the ante smashing a six over long off.
However, he perished in the same over as Bhurtel had him caught by Sandeep Jora for 10 as Nepal put the plugs on Scotland a little bit.
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Scotland reached their 150 in 17.2 overs losing four wickets and were looking at a total of 175-180 to finish with.
Nandan Yadav then bowled new batter Matthew Cross, who was bowled trying to play a cross-batted shot.
Kami was at it again when he scalped the wicket of Scotland’s Tom Bruce bowling him out in the 19th over as the Scots slipped to 156/6 in 18.4 overs.
Scotland got 12 runs off the 20th over with Mark Watt slamming a six off Nandan Yadav’s last ball to finish with 170/7 and set Nepal a target of 171.
