Mumbai, February 17: Nepal captain Rohit Paudel credited their maiden win in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup, achieved after 12 attempts in the final league match against Scotland at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Tuesday, to the lessons they learned from their close defeat to England and the steely nerves shown by their bowlers and batters in the final overs.
Nepal started the ICC T20 World Cup with a narrow defeat to England. However, they suffered demoralizing losses against the West Indies and Italy. But the win against Scotland restored some pride and will be remembered for a long time.
Nepal seemed to be on the verge of elimination as Scotland were comfortably ahead at 130/1 in the 15th over, looking at a total close to 200. But Nepal fought back bravely with Sompal Kami claiming 3-25 and Nandan Yadav bagging 2-34, restricting Scotland to 170/7 after electing to bowl first.
Nepal started their chase strongly, reaching 74 without loss. However, three quick wickets by Michael Leask (3-30) left them reeling at 98/3 going into the last six overs. Dipendra Singh Airee smashed 50 not out off 23 balls, and with Gulshan Jha contributing 24 not out off 17 balls, took Nepal to 171/3 in 19.2 overs and secured a seven-wicket victory.
He said the win means a lot to him as he was playing his second T20 World Cup.
"This means a lot to me, my second World Cup as captain, and winning the first game in the last game of the league stage was very important to us as a team. Dipendra led the way," said Paudel in the post-match presentation.
While praising Sompal Kami and Airee for their brilliant performance, Paudel also noted the enthusiastic support from their fans, who came in large numbers to support the team after their defeat to England in the opener.
"After our game against England, they (fans) started booking tickets and supported us to the last game," he added.
Paudel gave credit to his bowlers for restricting Scotland to 170/7 and said their death bowling was great. "To slow down and restrict them to 170, our death bowling was great. We focused more on dot balls than taking wickets," he said.
He admitted that his batters did not bat the way they would have liked, but said he was confident in Dipendra Airee and Gulshan Jha.
"This is not the way we wanted to play, but with Dipendra and Gulshan, they won the game for us. Dipendra deserves MoM. He has great talent. We kept our nerves calm, bowlers and batters. We learned a lot from the England game.
"To summarise this tournament, we wanted to play the way we did against England and Scotland. Italy was not the way we wanted to play. We will try to improve from here." Paudel signed off.
