Bahrain will face off against a buoyant Nepal team today in their second Group A game of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) Men’s U19 Premier Cup in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Both teams had contrasting starts to the tournament with Bahrain going doing to Saudi Arabia by 67 runs in their first match last Thursday while Nepal romped to a dominant 274-run win over Iran the same day.
That means that Nepal currently head the four-team table with two points and are ahead of Saudi Arabia, who also have two points, because of superior net run-rate (NRR).
Meanwhile, Bahrain are in third place because of an empty points column, ahead of Iran because of a better NRR.
Bahrain will be hoping that their batting unit shows more resolve after a disappointing show against the Saudis when, chasing 226 to win off 50 overs, they collapsed to 158 all out.
Nepal, on the other hand, will be hoping that they can carry on from where they left off on Thursday when they hammered a hapless Iran bowling attack as they racked up a massive total of 353 all out in just 40.1 overs before skittling the Iranis out for only 79 by the 31st over.
A Bahrain batter in the nets
Since Bahrain’s bowling fared much better than their batting against the Saudis – with left-arm spinner Shashank Shukla taking five for 29 off his 10 overs – they will look to their unit of nippy medium-pacers and wily spinners to hold the Nepal batting line-up in check and count on their own batters to come good in this must-win game.
16 teams, placed in groups of four sides each, are competing for three qualification spots for the 2023 ACC U19 Asia Cup which will be hosted by Pakistan in December.
The Premier Cup’s Group B features Oman, Qatar, China and the United Arab Emirates.
Thailand, the Maldives, Kuwait and Singapore are in Group C while Hong Kong, Malaysia, Japan and Indonesia are in Group D.
The two finalists will head to Pakistan, along with the winner of the third-place play-off.
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