Colors X-factors 124-8 (Karki 30 Malla 20 Regmi 2-23 Bhandari 2-23) beat Kantipur Gurkhas 109-7 (Airee 31 Thapa 30 Regmi 25 Routela 3-33 Karn 2-19) by 19 runs. Full Scorecard
Kaniipur Gurkhas failed to chase a sub-130 target for the third day in a row and were eliminated from the WaiWai EPL as they can no longer make it into the top two under any circumstances.
In what seemed like an action replay from the earlier two days, Gurkhas won the toss, opted to field first, get opposition restricted to a smallish total and come miserably short on the chase today as well. X-factors were hardly under any sort of comfort in their innings and apart from a brief period where Yogendra Singh Karki carried out a calculated assault on some short-pitched deliveries by spinners, it was a rather lackluster batting effort. Malla chipped in with a calmly paced 20 but it was once again a sweep to the spinner that cost him his wickets. Basant Regmi continued his good bowling run in the tournament as he piicked up two wickets while Lalit Bhandari also had two wickets under his name.
Chasing aa below par total, once again Subash Khakurel perished for a small score as he flicked straight into the hands of the fine leg. Pradeep Airee kept the Gurkhas’ hopes alive for a while with 31 runs off 24 balls but once he was dismissed, runs seemed hard to come by. Captain Regmi and Antim Thapa were involved in a 59 run stand for the fifth wicket stand but it was perhaps a tad slow-paced than what they would have liked. Gurkhas eventually fell short by 15 runs as a result of some disciplined bowling by X-factors throught the innings – Avinash Karna in the death overs in particular.
With the win, X-factors move to the third of the league standings with 2 wins from 3 matches and with 2 more matches to go, are very well placed to have a shot at top two. Gurkhas meanwhile have played their last game of this edition as they hav completed all their league matches and with only 3 points in 5 matches have no chance of the progress.
