Nepal lost their first game of the Top End T20 Series by 42 runs to the hosts, Northern Territory Strike, at Marrara Cricket Ground No 2, in Darwin, Australia, on Friday.

Winning the toss, skipper Rohit Kumar Paudel elected to field first at the home ground of the opponents, which saw a good number of Nepali fans at the venue. The decision did not go in favour of the visitors.

Sompal Kami opened the bowling attack, but bowled 10 balls in the first over, of which three were no-balls and one was a wide delivery; he did not bowl again. Starting with 19 runs in the first over, NT Strike’s opening duo of captain D’Arcy Short and Jake Weatherald took the scoreboard to 46 runs in 3.4 overs by the time Weatherald departed for 11 off 7 after being caught out in the spell of Rupesh Singh.

Short, on the other hand, went on to register a half-century; he scored 51 off 34 (7 fours, 1 six) before being bowled by Sandeep Lamichhane in the ninth over as the third wicket. The middle order also played well with Connor Carroll, Jordan Silk and Tom Andrews scoring 18 off 17, 19 off 14, and 32 off 26, respectively.

Andrews stayed not out with in-at-ten Hamish Martin (2 off 1) as NT Strike reached 177/8 in 20 overs.

Lamichhane took three wickets in total while Shahab Alaam bagged two. Dipendra Singh Airee and Paudel also claimed one each alongside Singh.

While NT Strike saw a decent start with the bat, Nepal’s opening failed. Nepal lost the top three for 25 runs by the sixth over. The opening duo of Kushal Bhurtel and Aasif Sheikh contributed 8 off 10 and 11 off 14 while Lokesh Bam departed for a duck after facing three deliveries.

Kushal Malla, who was making a return in the national jersey after a while, was the highest scorer for Nepal: 34 off 26. Paudel, Airee and Gulshan Jha scored 23 off 21, 19 off 24, and 26 off 10, respectively.

Nepal lost eight wickets and scored only 135 runs in the available 20 overs and suffered a 42-run defeat.

Matt Hammond bagged three wickets for NT Strike while Kane Richardson picked two. Short, Andrews and Martin took one each.

Of the six games each to be played by the 11 teams in the series’ league stage, Nepal will play their second game against Bangladesh A at the same venue today.