Nepal close, but undone by their own denial of a bonus point

Nepal went into their game today with Papua New Guinea knowing they had an outside chance of qualifying for the Super League but in the end they were just short of gaining their goal.

In the final analysis the net run rates told the story: Pakistan 0.820, England 0.804, Nepal 0.387. In one of the cruel ironies of the bonus point system, had Nepal not denied England a bonus point in their match, Nepal would have headed off Pakistan for a Super League place. Because the decision on who would have advanced to join England, would have been first based on head-to-head results and Nepal would have qualified by virtue of their win over Pakistan.

They would have been disappointed to have have been dismissed by PNG for 177 runs in the 49th over. None of the Nepalese batsmen made a big score, with Yashwant Subedi's 34 being the highest score, and even then off 73 balls.

Captain Binod Kumar Das scored 23 off 21 balls but it was too little too late for Nepal.

Christopher Amini was the pick of the PNG bowlers with his three for 31 off his 10 overs.

PNG made a good start to their bid to surpass Pakistan's score with Mahuta Dai scoring 32 off 35 balls and Frank Joseph 15 off 38 as 49 were posted for the first wicket. But as soon as the first wicket fell, there was a steady procession as all 10 wickets fell for 63 runs.

Lakpha Lama's left-arm bowling undid the PNG players as he took four for 14 from 10 overs while Basanta Regmi, also a left-armer, took two for 17 from eight overs. Shakh Gauchan continued the problems created by the left-armers by taking one for 12 from 10 overs.