February 22: Nepal made a clean sweep in the triangular one-day series against Scotland and Namibia under the ICC Men's One-day World Cup League 2 on Tuesday. Nepal maintained its perfect record on home turf in the fourth and last match of the series held at TU Cricket Ground on Tuesday defeating Scotland by 2 wickets to finish the series undefeated.

After winning the toss and inviting Scotland to bat first, Nepal restricted the visitors to 212 runs taking all their wickets in 46.1 overs. In reply, Nepal reached the target of 213 runs losing 8 wickets in 44.1 overs.    

Nepal’s captain Rohit Kumar Paudel scored an unbeaten 95 runs while Karan KC remained not out with 31 runs to ensure a nail-biting victory after an initial setback, reported the state-owned RSS. The home team had lost 8 wickets when KC joined his captain in the 32nd over with only 138 runs on board. The ninth wicket partnership between the two remained unbroken with player-of-the-match Paudel hitting a four to close the innings for the fourth win in as many matches.    

Former captain Gyanendra Malla contributed 21 runs while Kushal Malla and Ashif Sheikh scored 17 and 12 runs respectively.    

Scotland’s Mark Watt took 3 wickets and Chris Graves took 2 wickets.    

Earlier, George Munsey was the top-scorer for Scotland with 60 runs before being bowled out by rape-accused Sandeep Lamichhane, who took 4 wickets. Lamichhane, who has been released on bail from jail, has played a crucial role in Nepal’s victory. Scotland players had refused to shake hands with Lamichhane and had also notified Cricket Association of Nepal about the decision.

Meanwhile, Matthew Cross scored 42, Brandon McMullen scored 31 while Kyle Kotzer and Christopher McBride scored 22 runs each.     

For Nepal, Karan KC took 3 wickets while Lalit Narayan Rajbanshi and Kushal Malla took one wicket each.    

In their first match of the series, Nepal had defeated Scotland by 3 wickets. Nepal also defeated Namibia twice, by 2 wickets and 3 wickets respectively.    

Two head-turning run chases from Nepal on home soil have opened up the Cricket World Cup League 2 top-three race, wrote Daniel Beswick on ICC’s official website.

Nepal in the sixth place in the league with 26 points from 28 matches. Namibia is in the third position with 37 points. Scotland has been declared the winner of League 2 with 50 points from 36 matches.    

The ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup League 2 is a two-and-half-year competition involving seven teams that are two steps away from the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023

Men’s CWC League 2 - which sits one tier under the Men’s Cricket World Cup Super League - will see 21 tri-series played. Participating teams Namibia, Nepal, Oman, Papua New Guinea, Scotland, United Arab Emirates and United States of America will play 36 One Day Internationals each on the Road to India 2023.