12 February, 2024
Hoping to finish on a high, it was not to be as Nepal cruised to a nine-wicket victory in the final match of the three-match series. The hosts clinched the series 3-0 as a result, leaving Canada with plenty to learn from.
Put into bat after Nepal won the toss, Canada could only muster up a well below par 232/8 in 50 overs which Nepal chased down courtesy centuries from both opener Anil Sah and No. 3 batter Bhim Sharki. The pair put together a record unbeaten stand of 189 for the second wicket to leave Canada’s bowlers with nothing to celebrate.
“Definitely a disappointing day for us, Nepal outplayed us in all departments today,” captain Saad Bin Zafar said. “It was a slow wicket in the beginning but I still believe 230 was below par. I think we struggled with strike rotation today and we’ve spoken about one of the top five needing to score big for us which we lacked today. We struggled with the fast bowling department as well and leaked too many runs up top.”
Despite the big defeat, Canada has some positives to take from the cricket they showcased over the course of the series and will look to rebound quickly with some big matches to come. Below are the scorecard, playing XI, and takeaways:
Playing XI:
Aaron Johnson, Navneet Dhaliwal, Srimantha Wijeyeratne, Nicholas Kirton, Harsh Thaker, Nikhil Dutta, Shreyas Movva (wk), Saad Bin Zafar ©, Dillon Heyliger, Shahid Ahmadzai, Uday Bhagwan.
Takeaways:
CANADA UNABLE TO HIT TOP GEAR
Aaron Johnson has typically given Canada good starts up at the top of the order, averaging 43 at a strike rate of 124.64 through four matches played across the Hong Kong and Nepal tours. This wasn’t his day, though, as Johnson cut a short ball outside off stump straight into the hands of deep third man for just four runs off 10 balls.
In fact, every time Canada’s batters looked to take the game by the scruff of the neck, a wicket fell. Navneet Dhaliwal, Srimantha Wijeyeratne, Nicholas Kirton, and Shreyas Movva all fell looking for big hits.
On a slow wicket during the day where boundaries were hard to come by, an impetus to the innings was lacking throughout and batters were increasingly under pressure as the strike wasn’t rotated consistently enough.
DHALIWAL COMPILES FIRST HALF-CENTURY OF 2024
One of the positives of this match for Canada was opener Dhaliwal getting his first fifty of the year.
After the early wicket of Johnson, Dhaliwal looked a determined man in providing the innings with some stability and carried over some of his good touch from the previous match. Scoring just 23 runs in his first three matches on tour, Dhaliwal has bounced back with scores of 46 and 50 against Nepal.
Canada needs him at his very best moving forward, and though he and the team will have wished he could have gone on to reach triple figures, it’ll be even better if he can do so in the matches to come.
DUTTA, BIN ZAFAR PROVIDE ALL-ROUND FIGHT
After missing out on the first two matches of this series, Nikhil Dutta was the other man to provide the innings with some stability, coming in to bat at No. 6 with Canada at a tricky 101/4 after 27 overs. Looking composed throughout his innings, Dutta finished with 45 off 62 and stitched together a 31-run partnership with Harsh Thaker as well as a 54-run partnership with Shreyas Movva.
Dutta was run out in the 48th over attempting a risky single on a ball hit by Bin Zafar straight to backward point, but it was an important innings that Canada would have struggled to reach 200 without.
With the ball, Dutta was solid with figures of 9-1-40-0, the lack of runs on the board allowing Nepal’s batters to not take any undue risk.
Bin Zafar played a terrific cameo late, scoring 31 off just 15 balls including two mighty slog sweeps for six. With the ball, he tested both Sah and Sharki but just couldn’t come up with a breakthrough and finished with figures of 10-0-42-0.
LESSONS TO LEARN
Considering the first match was decided by seven runs and the second could have gone differently if not for a few 50-50 calls that went against Canada, a 3-0 scoreline for the series is quite harsh.
International cricket can be ruthless, though, and the best way for the team to emerge from this is to take the lessons of these defeats both big and small to be a better side moving forward. Nepal, at the end of the day, has been very difficult to beat at home with what is now 15 straight ODI victories at Tribhuvan University International Cricket Ground.
“In the fast bowling department, we need to stick to one line and stick to our lengths, I think we were all over [the place] in the beginning,” Bin Zafar said. “Some of the batsmen, they’ve been playing well but those fifties and sixties need to be converted to hundreds. That’s the difference between scoring 230 or 240 and 300 or 310. Those are the two main areas we need to work on.
“We’re still here for another 10 days or so and we’re playing against Nepal A and we have training days as well. Hopefully we’ll work on these shortcomings and we’ll start off our ODI cycle well.”
PLAYING IN FRONT OF BIG CROWDS A BIG PLUS
Attendance was very good for this series at Kirtipur and Canada can definitely look back on playing a couple of tense games with packed crowds as a check mark for the experience box.
In a year where Canada will have the bright lights of a T20 World Cup to experience, these types of atmospheres can only aid in helping the players develop an understanding of what’s to come.
“That’s the number one memory we’ll be taking back with us, they not only supported Nepal but they supported good cricket,” Bin Zafar said. “We loved and enjoyed every bit of it, playing in front of them, and I hope we have entertained them well enough over the course of one week. We would love to come back here and play again in front of a packed crowd. I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart.”
