Dipesh Kandel and Durgesh Gupta produced an impressive bowling display to help Nepal men’s U-19 cricket team crush Bahrain by seven wickets at the ACC Men’s U-19 Premier Cup at the Bayuemas Oval in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Sunday.

Kandel took six wickets giving away just four runs in his 9.5-over bowling spell and Gupta returned the match figures of 4-22 to bowl out Bahrain, who opted to bat first, for just 77 runs.

Kandel came in the second over and quickly started the Bahrain’s batting collapse removing openers captain Rishab Ramesh for six runs and Ayan Obaid Syed for three.

Durgesh Gupta came in the ninth over and sent back Sai Sarthak Vaddiraju (2), Muhammad Adil Haq Nawaz Sher Lal Khan (nought) to put Bahrain in trouble at 4-17.

Muhammed Basil Abdul Hakkim smashed sixes off Arjun Kumal and Subash Bhandari to drag Bahrain to 61 in 30 overs but Gupta clean-bowled Hakkim in the 30.2 overs to end the resistance. Hakkim’s 34 runs off 77 balls was the only double digit figure of the Bahrain’s innings.

Gupta then sent back Anas Obaid Syed for nought two balls later to do further damage.

Kandel then polished off the tail dismissing Vishwaesh Gurumurthy (0) and Shashank Shekhar Shukla (0) in the 33rd over and Abhinav Girish Vashisht (9) and Wazir Ahmad Sher Alam (0) in the 38th over to complete his six-wicket haul.

In reply, Nepal faced an early scare losing Deepak Bohara (4) and Uttam Rangu Thapa Magar (0) in the first over and Dipak Prasad Dumre (1) in the third over—all removed by Anas Obaid Syed.

But Arjun Kumal scored not out 32 off 31 balls and captain Dev Khanal—who became the first Nepali batter to score two centuries in U-19 cricket in Nepal’s 274-run win over Iran on Thursday—played not out 32 off 27 balls to chase down the target in just 11.4 overs to guide Nepal to a second successive victory.

The outcome means Nepal lead the four-team Group A standings with four points from two matches. Saudi Arabia occupy the second spot, also on four points, after they defeated Iran by four wickets at the YSD UKM Oval in Bangi in the day’s other action.

Bahrain and Iran are winless.

Nepal will progress into the semi-finals if they defeat Saudi Arabia on Thursday.

A total of 16 teams—divided into four groups—are competing in the third edition of the U-19 Asia Cup qualifying event.

The group winners will progress into the semi-finals. The top three teams of the tournament will join five full members of the Asian Cricket Council, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, at the 2023 ACC men’s U-19 Asia Cup finals, which is scheduled to be held in Pakistan in December.

Nepal national U-19 team have already qualified for the 2024 Cricket World Cup to be held in Sri Lanka on January 13-February 4 next year.