Nepal wins 1st International Blind Women Cricket Tournament
Nepal’s visually impaired (VI) women’s cricket team has taken an unassailable 2-0 lead in the 3-match International Blind Women Cricket Tournament against an all-female VI team from the UK.
their first ever international all-female Blind Cricket series, Nepal won by 93 runs in the T20 match played at the Institute of Engineering cricket ground in Pulchowk, Lalitpur on Monday, October 27, 2014.
Sent in by the UK team to bat first, Nepal scored 174 runs for the loss of six wickets in its allotted 20 overs. Mankeshi Chaudhary scored 77 runs for Nepal, followed by Om Maya Pun with 24 runs and Nima BC with 16 runs. For the UK team, Louis, Harvey and Elyse took a wicket each.
In reply, the UK team managed to score 80 runs for the loss of eight wickets in its 20 overs.
UK’s Jade scored 16 runs and Sarah 14 runs.
For Nepal, Bhagwati Bhattarai, Sunita Ghimire, Bhagwati Amgain claimed two wickets each while Muna Aryal and Sarita Ghimire took a wicket each.
Nepal’s Man Kesari Chaudhary was declared the player of the match. She received a Rs 2,000 award.
The team from UK had also gone down by 169 runs on the first day of the tournament held at the same venue on Sunday, October 26, 2014.
Talking to nepalnews during Monday’s match, President of Cricket Association of Blind, Nepal, Pawan Ghimire, said the event was proving to be a success. “We need more support from the government to organise such events and to participate in international tournaments.”
The support from the government is very minimal, Ghimire, says. “We get only Rs 550,000 per annum.”
Ghimire says that Nepal’s VI women’s team is scheduled to play matches with Pakistani blind women’s team in 2015. “The tour is a part of promoting blind women’s cricket in Pakistan as they have recently formed a team.”
Similarly, the UK’s coach Beth Evans said that she was happy to be here with the team to play the first ever international tournament.
Praising the Nepali team, Evans said that she was inspired by the Nepali team to form a team in the UK. UK’s is the second blind women’s team after Nepal, she added.
After winning the match, Nepal’s captain Bhagwati Bhattarai said that such international tournaments were a must to boost the women’s blind cricket. “We want to participate in international tournaments abroad as well,” she said.
Nepal and the UK team will play their final match on Tuesday at the same venue. The match is scheduled to kick off at 9 am.
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