Nepal vs Netherlands: Round three, scores level, stakes high

Nepal and the Netherlands will face each other in the final of the Tri-Nation Twenty20 Series on Tuesday at TU International Cricket Ground.

Both teams have played each other 11 times in the Twenty20 International earlier with five wins each. They beat each other once in the two meetings of this series. The Netherlands edged Nepal by two runs in the first encounter while Nepal outplayed the visitors by six wickets in the second match-up.

Despite Pratish GC’s player-of-the-match performance against the Dutch with the figures of 3-13, Nepal’s pace bowling have been hitting rock-bottom in the series so far with each of their pacers leaking runs at a terrible rate.

Be it Sompal Kami or Abinash Bohara, none looked like hitting the right lengths, let alone threatening batters. Karan KC, although, have bowled beautifully in certain phases. Despite leaking runs at 9.84, Karan has picked up six wickets in four matches in the series. His best came against the same side in their last group-stage match when he picked up two wickets, giving away only 18 runs in his three overs.

Sompal Kami is releasing runs at 9.72 in the series with only two wickets to his name. The wickets came against Namibia and he went wicketless in the remaining three matches.

Abinash Bohara is going for nearly 10 runs per over (9.90) with only two wickets in three matches. Gulshan Jha only rolled his arm for one over in the competition, conceding 18 runs.

Nepal might rope in their left-arm spinner, Lalit Rajbanshi, for the final to strengthen their bowling department. Lalit has only played a match in the series and didn’t look in his rhythm, conceding 42 runs in his four overs without accounting for any wickets.

Batting-heavy Nepal have scored 56.20% runs in the boundaries in the series. Skipper Rohit Kumar Paudel is the fulcrum of their batting line-up as he has been involved in three out of five fifty-plus partnerships for Nepal in the series. Rohit has scored 148 runs in the four innings, striking at 143.68. On the other hand, Dipendra Singh Airee, played some impactful innings with 131 runs in the same number of innings. The All-Rounder has struck at 165.82 with 15 boundaries.

Kushal Malla will be the other handy player for Nepal against the strong Dutch side in the all-important final. Kushal has been performing all-around in the series with a few handy knocks and three wickets in the tournament.

In-form Michael Levitt is expected to lead the batting for the visiting team. Levitt is the top scorer of the series with 193 runs in three innings, averaging at 64.33. He has been smashing the bowlers consistently with a blasting strike rate of 189.21.

Vivian Kingma will test Nepal’s batting line-up with his line and length. He has picked up seven wickets in four matches with an economy of 5.66.

Both squads include match-winners who could step up on any given day for their country. The full-house TU International Cricket Ground will set the platform for all the players to emerge in the historical final between associates giant, Netherlands and the emerging South Asian cricketing nation, Nepal.