Sudurpaschim Secures Top Spot with a Dominant Win Ahead of Playoffs
Sudoor defeated Pokhara Avengers by 5 runs in Sunday's match and won by playing well in both batting and bowling.
Sunday's exciting win had confirmed the distant playoffs. Pokhara's top order, which was not in form throughout the tournament, could not perform well, but Raymon Reifer and Kiran Thagunna of the middle order pulled the match to the last over, but Scott Kuggeleijn won the match with good bowling in the last over. Before that, Harmeet Singh also bowled well and kept Pokhara under pressure.
Sudoor won three games in a row in the first three games, but lost in the fourth and then won three games in a row again. So far, Sudoor has not allowed his rhythm to be disturbed so much.
Apart from losing to Chitwan in their fourth match, Sudoor did not do anything wrong. Having won 6 out of 7 matches in the league stage, the batting, bowling and fielding of the team have been good. Binod Bhandari and Saif Ali Zaib looked good in Sudur's opening. Both together have given a moderate start.
Binod has scored 136 runs in 7 matches so far while Jaib has also taken 9 wickets while scoring 174 runs. A good presence of mind has also been seen in Binod's keeping. He has also done some important runouts and stumpings.
Similarly, Brandon McMullen is contributing both with batting and bowling. So far, he has scored 162 runs in 7 matches with a half century and has also taken 6 wickets.
On the other hand, the arrival of Harmeet Singh has helped the team in left-handed bowling and pinch hitting. Harmeet has taken 8 wickets in just 3 matches. He is also seen in good rhythm.
Captain Dipendra Singh Airee himself is proving to be important for the team, while New Zealand bowler Scott Kuggeleijn has also contributed significantly to the team's victory. He has taken 15 wickets in 7 matches. Dipendra has scored 198 runs with a half century in 7 matches and has also taken 5 wickets.
Ishan Pandey is also batting well and has also taken a few wickets from running the game in the middle overs when the team needs it. Arif Sheikh is also playing well in the middle order. Similarly, Avinash Bohra's pace bowling and Naren Saud's spin bowling are also important for the team.
While talking to Dipendra Singh Airee, he responded that the team is good and has been playing with the mindset of winning the title from the beginning. Everyone is preparing accordingly, our team is also strong and there is a balance in everything. We have been saying since the beginning that we will win the title, let's see what happens now, it will be good.
In the last match of the league stage, Sudurpaschim played against Karnali Yaks on Monday. After winning the toss against Karnali and opting to bowl, Sudoor stopped Karnali cheaply and won by 4 wickets in about 5 overs.
Captain Dipendra Singh Airee played the captaincy in the away win. He took 2 wickets from bowling and played an important innings of 38 runs after the early wicket was lost in batting. He also became the man of the match.