Lumbini Lions Beat Sudurpaschim Royals by 7 Wickets — Malla and Mahato Bowl the Royals Out for 87

Season openers are supposed to be nervy, with sides still finding their combinations and nobody quite sure what a good score looks like. Lumbini Lions skipped that stage. Put in to bat at Kirtipur, Sudurpaschim Royals were 34 for 4 inside six overs and 56 for 7 before the tenth was done. They were bowled out for 87 in 17.2 overs.

The chase lasted 59 balls. D'Arcy Short and Aasif Sheikh put on 71 for the first wicket, and Lumbini Lions won by 7 wickets with 61 balls remaining. The champions have started where they left off.

Rohit Paudel chose to bowl and his bowlers took wickets in clusters. The Royals had reached 24 without loss when Sher Malla trapped Binod Bhandari lbw in the fourth over. Within ten balls Aarif Sheikh and Brandon McMullen were gone too, both to Kishor Mahato, and the score went from 24 for 0 to 28 for 3. Saif Zaib followed at 34.

The second cluster came either side of the ninth over: Ishan Pandey, Sherfane Rutherford and Scott Kuggeleijn fell for three runs, 53 for 4 becoming 56 for 7. Then Mahato bowled Dipendra Singh Airee and Hemant Dhami off consecutive balls in the 13th over to make it 70 for 9. Five Lumbini bowlers took wickets, and nobody went at more than 6.33 an over.

The chase was short and loud. D'Arcy Short hit four fours and three sixes in 40 off 18 balls, and Aasif Sheikh, the most talked-about signing of the auction, made 32 off 25 with two sixes of his own. By the time Short was caught off Anil Kharel the score was 71 in the seventh over and the game was done.

The Royals' batting card had real names on it: Saif Zaib, Brandon McMullen, Sherfane Rutherford, Scott Kuggeleijn. Between them they made 16 runs. McMullen was bowled for 2, Rutherford caught for 1, Kuggeleijn lbw for a duck. Aarif Sheikh lasted six balls without scoring. Only the captain, Dipendra Singh Airee, looked settled, making 27 off 23 before Mahato bowled him.

There were things to take from it. Anil Kharel batted 26 balls for 15 not out to get the total past 80, and then took both openers for 9 runs in his two overs, the best figures by a Royals bowler. But 87 was never enough. The Royals now have to work out whether the problem was the plan or just a bad afternoon, and they need the answer quickly.

The scores tell two stories. Batting first, the Royals managed seven fours and no sixes in 17.2 overs, and 10 of their 87 runs were extras. Chasing, Lumbini hit five sixes in 9.5 overs. That suggests the surface did not hold a big secret: the bowlers who bowled straight (four of the ten Royals wickets were bowled, two lbw) were rewarded, and once the ball was in the slot it travelled. The toss went the way of the side that wanted to chase, and that is likely to be the preference for a while.

Mahato took more wickets, but Malla's figures were the more remarkable: four overs, 11 runs, three wickets. He broke the opening stand when he removed Binod Bhandari, came back to dismiss Sherfane Rutherford and Scott Kuggeleijn in the same over, and also took the catch that removed Saif Zaib. On a day when batters were looking for something to hit, he gave them almost nothing. That is what a quiet over sounds like when it is repeated four times.

Our preview called Lumbini Lions the stronger side on paper and that was right, emphatically. We also said both captains would want to chase, and the side that won the toss did chase and won with ten overs to spare. Aasif Sheikh, whose top-order aggression we highlighted, made a brisk 32.

The misses deserve as much space. We expected Kirtipur's short boundaries to produce a high-scoring game, and the first innings produced 87. We built the Lions' strength around Paudel, Dickwella and Aasif at the top; Dickwella made 7 and Paudel only batted at the end, while the man who took the game away, D'Arcy Short, did not appear in our preview at all. Nor did we single out Malla or Mahato, who won it with the ball. And the idea that the Royals would arrive more structured under their new coach did not survive the first ten overs.

After the first three matches of the season, Lumbini Lions, Chitwan Rhinos and Karnali Yaks have won, and Lumbini's margin, with 61 balls to spare, will help their net run rate early. For the Royals, the obvious question is the batting order: whether their overseas players can adjust to Kirtipur quickly, or whether Airee needs more support from the local batters. For Lumbini, it is about keeping Malla and Mahato fresh. Opening wins like this one can hide problems in the middle order that has yet to be tested.