Nepal Beat Oman by 113 Runs — Karan KC's Four Sixes and Eight-Run Spell Decide It at Al Amerat

For 46 overs this was a careful, slightly dour Nepal innings, the kind that reaches 240 and asks the bowlers to do the rest. Then Karan KC walked in at 216 for 7, hit four sixes in 16 balls, and was run out off the last ball of the innings going for more. Forty-seven runs came from the final 23 balls, Nepal had 263, and the game had tilted before Oman had faced a delivery.

Oman never recovered the ground. They were 41 for 6 in the 12th over, with Karan KC, Nandan Yadav and Sandeep Lamichhane sharing the wickets, and only Vinayak Shukla, who had already taken four catches and a run out as wicketkeeper, offered anything lasting. Nepal 263/8 (50 overs). Oman 150 all out (40 overs). Nepal won by 113 runs, and Karan KC, 40 from 16 balls and 1 for 8 from six overs, was Player of the Match.

Nepal chose to bat and began as if they expected the pitch to be hard work. Aasif Sheikh was caught by Jay Odedra off Shah Faisal for 4 in the seventh over, and the first powerplay produced 33 for 1. Arjun Kumal and Ishan Pandey then added 64 from 87 balls, taking Nepal to 64 for 1 at the first drinks break and 81 before Karan Sonavale bowled Pandey for 37. Kumal, lbw to Shakeel Ahmed for 40 in the next over, went at 83 for 3, and the innings had to be built again.

Rohit Paudel and Basir Ahamad did that with an 86-run stand from 104 balls. Paudel reached fifty from 58 balls and was caught behind by Shukla off Shakeel for 61 at 191 in the 43rd over; Basir had gone for 37 at 169. Dipendra Singh Airee made 22 from 17 without a boundary and Sundeep Jora 10, and when Jora was caught behind off Hassnain Shah at 216 for 7 in the 47th over, Nepal's last ten overs were on course for something modest.

Karan KC changed the arithmetic. One four and four sixes in 16 balls, 40 runs, and a stand of 47 from 23 balls with Nandan Yadav, who hit a four in his 7 not out. KC was run out by Shukla off the final ball, and Nepal's last ten overs had produced 92. Hassnain Shah, who bowled the end overs, finished with 10-0-75-1; every other Oman bowler went at five an over or under. Sonavale (9-0-38-2) and Faisal (10-0-44-2) were the pick.

Oman's chase was over before it had started. Karan KC bowled Hasnain Ul Wahab for a duck in the second over, Nandan Yadav bowled Mujibur Ali for 2 in the third, and Yadav then trapped Hammad Mirza lbw for 4. The powerplay closed at 33 for 3. Jatinder Singh, caught by Karan KC off Lalit Rajbanshi for 18, went at 33 for 4, and Lamichhane took two in two balls in the 12th over, bowling Sonavale and then Zikria Islam first ball. Oman were 41 for 6 and at drinks had crawled to 47 for 6 after 14 overs.

Credit to Vinayak Shukla, who had kept wicket for 50 overs and taken five of the eight Nepal wickets that fell, and then came out to bat as if the match were still there to be won. He and Jay Odedra added 83 from 119 balls for the seventh wicket, Shukla reaching fifty from 59 balls, and Oman were 114 for 6 at the 30-over drinks. Airee then had Odedra lbw for 25 at 124 and bowled Shah Faisal at 148, and Yadav returned to have Shukla caught by Aasif Sheikh for 77 from 83 balls, six fours and a six. Oman's last wicket fell at 150 with ten overs unused.

Nepal's bowling card is worth reading in full. Yadav 6-1-12-3, KC 6-2-8-1, Lamichhane 9-0-28-3, Airee 7-0-30-2: four bowlers took the wickets, and three of them went at under 3.2 an over. Rajbanshi (6-0-31-1), Basir (4-0-21-0) and Paudel (2-0-13-0) filled in the rest. Oman scored at 3.75 an over all day, and 83 of their 150 came from one partnership.

We weren't at the ground. Two days after 235 was enough for Nepal against Canada on this ground, 263 was a great deal more than enough, and once again the chasing side found runs hard to come by against accurate bowling. Nepal scored 33 in their first powerplay and Oman 33 in theirs, so the new ball was not easy for anyone; the difference was that Nepal lost one wicket in that period and Oman three. The surface rewarded batters who stayed in, which is why Shukla's 77 and Paudel's 61 were the two longest innings of the day, and it punished the ones who did not, which is why Oman's top five made 28 between them.

It is not often that a number nine wins a Player of the Match award, and rarer still that he earns it twice over. Karan KC came in with 23 balls left in the innings and faced 16 of them for 40 runs, four of them sixes, before he was run out going for a fifth off the last ball. Then he took the new ball, bowled Hasnain Ul Wahab in the second over, and finished with six overs, two maidens, eight runs. His 40 was the difference between a total of around 220 and one of 263; his spell was the reason Oman never got the start to chase either.

There is a particular pleasure in watching a cricketer who has read the moment correctly. The game was waiting for someone to be bold at the end of the Nepal innings and someone to be miserly at the start of Oman's, and Karan KC was both.

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

Two points and a 113-run margin take Nepal to 28 points from 34 matches (13 wins) and, more satisfyingly for them, lift their net run rate from -0.069 before this game to +0.009. They stay sixth in the League 2 table, three points behind Namibia (31). With only two matches left in their cycle, though, Nepal can finish on no more than 32, and fourth-placed Oman already have 33, so the top four that goes through to the next stage is beyond them; these last games are about finishing as high as the table allows. Oman stay fourth on 33 from 30 matches (15 wins, net run rate -0.042), with five games in hand on Namibia and a comfortable buffer to Nepal, and they are back at Al Amerat on October 15 to face Canada (25 points, seventh). United States (49), Scotland (45) and Netherlands (38) occupy the top three.