Biratnagar Kings Beat Janakpur Bolts by 2 Runs — Andre Russell Makes 52 Not Out, Then Defends 13 in the Last Over

Some matches are decided over twenty overs, and some are decided in the last six balls of forty. This one, the morning game of Tuesday's double-header at Kirtipur, belonged to the second kind. Janakpur Bolts needed 13 from the final over with five wickets in hand and Saif Hassan on 66. They got 10 of them, lost two wickets, and the last ball of the match went straight to Basir Ahamad.

The man who bowled that over had already made 52 not out off 29 balls. Andre Russell finished with 4 for 45 to go with his innings, and Biratnagar Kings won by 2 runs, their second win of the season.

Janakpur chose to field and had a wicket in the first over: Moeen Ali had Shehan Jayasuriya stumped by Anil Sah with the score on 2. What followed was the innings' foundation. Lokesh Bam and Imran Sheikh added 107 for the second wicket, and they did it patiently rather than spectacularly. Imran made 56 off 45 with five fours and two sixes; Bam 50 off 40 with three of each. Both fell to Abhisekh Tiwari, Imran caught behind at 109 in the 14th over and Bam caught by Lalit Rajbanshi at 146 off the last ball of the 18th.

At 109 for 2 after 13.2 overs, Biratnagar were heading for something around the par the preview had talked about. Russell changed the arithmetic. He made 52 not out off 29 balls with five sixes and two fours, adding 37 with Bam and then an unbroken 28 with Shubham Ranjane over the last two overs. The Kings scored 65 from the 40 balls after Imran's dismissal. James Neesham's two overs went for 28 and Harmeet Singh's four for 35, and in a match decided by two runs, every one of those counted.

The chase started badly. Angelo Mathews bowled Trit Raj Das at 15 in the third over, and then Russell, in the fifth over, removed Moeen Ali, caught by Ranjane, and Anil Sah, caught by Imran Sheikh for a two-ball duck, in the space of three deliveries. At 30 for 3 after 4.4 overs, 175 looked a long way off.

Saif Hassan and Bishal Shusling brought it back. They added 76 for the fourth wicket, and Shusling's 43 off 30 with three sixes had the required rate under control until Mathews had him caught by Basir Ahamad off the last ball of the 14th over at 106. Neesham then hit three sixes in 27 off 15 and added 56 with Saif. Russell's 17th over ended with Saif hitting him for six; Sandeep Lamichhane's 18th went 1, 1, 1, 0, 6, 0; and in Rupesh Singh's 19th Saif hit a six, a two and a single, and Neesham cleared the rope before he was caught by Ranjane off the last ball of the over. That left Janakpur on 162 for 5, needing 13 from six balls.

Russell bowled the 20th. Saif took a single. Harmeet Singh was caught by Basir Ahamad first ball. Abhisekh Tiwari hit a four and took a single. Saif hit a four, and it was three to win off the last ball. He went for it, and Basir Ahamad held his third catch of the innings. Saif's 71 off 48, with five sixes, was the best innings of the match. It finished on the losing side by two runs.

We have only the scorecard to go on, and it describes a good surface for batting. There were 346 runs in the match and 21 sixes, ten from Biratnagar and eleven from Janakpur. The most economical spells were Moeen Ali's 13 from two overs, Aprajit Poudel's 26 from four and Lamichhane's 27 from four; at the other end, Neesham went for 14 an over and Russell's 45 from four overs was the price of taking the wickets that settled the result. This was the first game of the double-header, which our preview expected to be free of dew, and nothing about either innings suggests the pitch slowed up for the side batting second.

Russell had two jobs on Tuesday, and he did both at the hardest end of each innings. With the bat he walked in at 109 for 2 with fewer than seven overs left and made 52 not out off 29. With the ball he took two wickets in the fifth over, when Janakpur were trying to get started, and two more in the 20th, when they were trying to finish. In between, his figures went up to 45, including the six Saif hit him for at the end of the 17th. Very few cricketers are handed the last over to defend after making the decisive runs in the same match; fewer still pull it off.

Cricket keeps the last ball for the people who have earned it. Saif Hassan had earned it with 71 runs. Russell had earned it too, and on this morning the last ball chose him.

Our preview did not pick a winner. It called this the most evenly matched contest of the group stage, and a two-run margin decided on the final ball supports that. We also said the side batting first should aim for 155 or more; Biratnagar made 174, and it was only just enough. We named the Kings' death-overs batting as their big question after their opening-match collapse against Chitwan Rhinos. Here they scored 65 from the last 40 balls without losing a wicket until the end of the 18th over, so this time, at least, that question was answered.

The result leaves both sides on four points from four games. Biratnagar Kings move to second with a net run rate of +0.408, and Janakpur Bolts drop to fourth on +0.099, with Karnali Yaks between them on the same points from a game fewer. Lumbini Lions lead on five points after beating Pokhara Avengers later the same day. In a table this crowded, two runs at Kirtipur could be the difference in the race for the play-off places.