Nepal Beat Canada by 24 Runs — Rohit Paudel's Hundred Holds the Innings Together at Al Amerat

Some hundreds are made in a rush and some are made in instalments. Rohit Paudel's at Al Amerat on Sunday was the second kind: 23 at the first drinks break, 70 at the second, and a hundred off 125 balls by the time Nepal's innings reached its final overs. It was not always pretty, and it did not need to be. On a day when nobody else in Nepal's top six passed 30, it was the innings around which everything else was arranged.

Nepal 235 all out (50 overs). Canada 211 all out (48.4 overs). Nepal won by 24 runs. Rohit Paudel, 101 from 127 balls, was Player of the Match.

Canada chose to field and struck twice early: Aasif Sheikh caught by Aaron Johnson off Akhil Kumar in the second over, and Ishan Pandey caught behind off Zahid Shirzad in the third. Nepal were 10 for 2. Paudel and Arjun Kumal added 46 before Sukhjinder Singh had Kumal caught by Johnson at the first drinks break, 56 for 3 after 17 overs.

Paudel and Basir Ahamad then added 77 from 113 balls, unhurried but necessary, and Paudel reached fifty from 75 balls. When Basir and Dipendra Singh Airee fell within two overs, both to Sukhjinder Singh, Nepal were 141 for 5 in the 38th over and a total near 200 looked likely. Gulsan Jha changed that. He and Paudel added 82 from 60 balls; Jha hit three sixes, and Nepal scored 88 in their last ten overs. Paudel's hundred came from 125 balls.

Nepal's bowling was a collective effort: four bowlers took two wickets each, and two more Canadians were run out. Sandeep Lamichhane's ten overs cost 33 and Lalit Rajbanshi's 36. Lamichhane's double strike in the 17th over — Johnson caught by Jha, then Aaditya Varadarajan caught by Kumal first ball — was the moment the chase lost its footing.

For most of Nepal's innings, Canada's bowlers did everything asked of them. Harsh Thaker bowled ten overs for 32 without a wicket, Sheel Patel ten for 44, and Sukhjinder Singh's three wickets broke two partnerships. Akhil Kumar finished with four wickets, including Jha and Paudel, though his ten overs cost 68. The damage was done in the death overs; Canada did hit back once Jha fell in the 48th, taking Nepal's last four wickets for 12 runs, but by then 223 had become 235.

The chase started well enough. Aaron Johnson hit six fours in 44 from 49 balls and Canada were 70 for 1 at the first drinks break. Losing Johnson and Varadarajan in successive balls at 73 put the brakes on, and Samit Gohel's run out at 94 left the middle order to rebuild against an attack that gave very little away. Shreyas Movva (26) and Hamza Tariq (26) each got a start, and Akhil Kumar fought to 30 not out, but the required rate kept climbing and the wickets kept coming at regular intervals until Nandan Yadav finished it in the 49th over.

We weren't at the ground. A first-innings total of 235 proved enough, and neither side scored quickly through the middle: Nepal were 56 for 3 after 17 overs and Canada 124 for 5 after 30.3. The best economy rates of the day — Harsh Thaker 3.2 an over, Sandeep Lamichhane 3.3, Lalit Rajbanshi 3.6 — came from bowlers who used their full ten overs, which suggests that accuracy, more than anything, was rewarded at Al Amerat. The fastest scoring of the day came at the end of Nepal's innings, once batters were set.

Paudel came in at 10 for 2 and was out at 227 for 7 in the 49th over, caught by Movva off Shirzad. In between, he shared three partnerships — 46, 77 and 82 — each with a different purpose: survival, consolidation, acceleration. Eight fours and one six in 127 balls tells you he was rarely in a hurry, and he rarely needed to be.

The best anchoring innings are the ones that keep the others in place. Paudel's did exactly that — without it, Jha's late fireworks would have had nothing to light up.

This match didn't have a CricIntel preview — we'll have full analysis for the next encounter.

The two points take Nepal to 26 from 33 matches (12 wins, net run rate -0.069), lifting them above Canada into sixth in the League 2 table. Canada, two days after losing to Oman by 41 runs, slip to seventh with 25 points from 34 matches (10 wins, net run rate -0.414). Namibia are fifth on 31 and Oman fourth on 33 from 29 games, with United States (49), Scotland (45) and Netherlands (38) at the top.