Three days is a long time in franchise cricket. On December 6, the unbeaten Sudurpaschim Royals looked mortal, humbled by Biratnagar Kings in a defeat that left 49 balls remaining. On Tuesday, however, the Royals didn’t just avenge that loss; they dismantled the Kings to cement a legacy.

With a resounding 77-run victory in Qualifier 1, Sudurpaschim became the first franchise in the history of the ‘Festival of Himalayas’ to reach the Nepal Premier League final in consecutive seasons. In doing so, they have silenced the doubters who questioned their momentum and reasserted their status as the league’s premier powerhouse.

The Royals did not post a total that was too different from their previous encounter with the Kings on Saturday. Compared to the previous fixture between the duo, the Royals had only seven runs more on the scoreboard against the Kings on Tuesday. However, from chasing the previous target of 148 runs in 11.5 overs, Tuesday’s 156 turned into an Everest for the Kings.

Winning the toss and electing to field first, like in the previous match, the Kings seemed happy after restricting the Royals to 155/7. However, while the Kings deemed it as chaseable, the Royals found it defendable.

And it was Binod Bhandari who single-handedly took the Royals to a defendable total. Opening for the Royals with Mukhtar Ahmed, a new face in the squad from Pakistan’s domestic cricket scene, Bhandari was the sixth wicket to fall in the last ball of the 19th over.

Bhandari fell only one run short of reaching the 500-run milestone in the NPL when he got out at 63 off 52, leaving the team at 148 runs. He would have become only the second player in the NPL, after Ravi Bopara, to reach the landmark.

Looking back at the match, the Kings would not be happy with Bhandari being dropped at 29 runs. With Bhandari’s anchoring knock and Ahmed’s 10 off 10, India’s Sheldon Jackson, another new face to the Royals’ squad, put on 20 off 11 on his NPL debut. Meanwhile, Ishan Pandey’s 13 off 17, Harmeet Singh’s 14 off 11 and Aarif Sheikh’s 20 off 13 were also important.

Four of the seven wickets of the Royals were catches. And among them, youngster Naren Bhatta made a brilliant catch to dismiss Pandey. Placed at the long-on boundary, Bhatta grabbed the ball going for six with a single hand, threw it inside while he stumbled and went across the boundary, and completed the catch by coming inside. The other three catches were by Sam Heazlett.

The pacer duo—Marchant de Lange and Pratish GC—bagged two wickets each for the Kings, while Surya Tamang and Heazlett picked one each.

While he was good with the ball and on the field, Heazlett, who scored a fifty against the Royals in the last match and built a 97-run partnership for the first wicket with Faf du Plessis, failed with the bat on Tuesday. Attempting a maximum in the very first ball of the chase against Scott Kuggeleijn, Heazlett was caught out by Dipendra Singh Airee for a royal duck.

And within the next six deliveries, the Kings lost two more wickets, that too in the form of Martin Guptill and Bhatta. Guptill (2 off 2) was run out following a miscommunication with du Plessis, while Bhatta was caught out by Kuggeleijn at the point while attempting a shot in the first ball he was facing.

Before the 10th over concluded, the Kings had already lost more than half of their wickets. Basir Ahamad (12 off 18), Lokesh Bam (5 off 6) and Narayan Joshi (1 off 3) were the other three wickets to fall.

Du Plessis, who was dropped at 17 by Airee in a difficult catch while running backwards, was keeping the team on the chase, but the hopes for the Kings were shattered when he too departed, as the seventh wicket. The South African hard-hitter departed at 36 off 29 at 10.5 overs after getting caught out for a top edge while attempting to hit straight.

The Kings were at 59 runs when du Plessis got out. And in the next 19 runs, the Kings were bundled out at 14.1 overs. De Lange (15 off 11) was only the third Kings batter to score in double figures.

Kuggeleijn, Harmeet Singh and Abinash Bohara bagged two wickets each, while Hemant Dhami and Airee picked one each as the Kings could only manage to score almost half of the target they were chasing. It was the largest victory of the season when Sudurpaschim won by 77 runs.

Further, with two wickets against the Kings, Bohara became the leading wicket-taker of the season, surpassing Sandeep Lamichhane, who did not bag any wickets against the Royals. Bohara now has 16 wickets in eight innings, while Lamichhane got stuck at 15.

“The batting order did not work out today,” Dipendra Chaudhary, team director of Biratnagar Kings, responded with a short answer when asked where the team failed against the Royals in Qualifier 1. However, Chaudhary did not rule out the chances of facing the Royals again in the final.

“We will now focus on mitigating the mistakes we made today and come afresh to face the winners of Eliminator in Qualifier 2 on Thursday,” said Chaudhary. “We did great in the last match, while we failed today. Cricket is like this. But we will come back stronger.”

Kathmandu Gorkhas are facing Lumbini Lions in the Eliminator on Wednesday, with the winner progressing to Qualifier 2 and getting a shot at the final.

Meanwhile, when Kugeeleijn, who came for the post-match conference after the Royals’ dominating win over the Kings, was asked who the team wanted to face in the final, he said, “We want to face them [Biratnagar Kings].”

When asked how the team felt after reaching the final consecutively, Kuggeleijn said, “It does not feel good to only reach the final unless you win it. Thus, we want to win it this time.” The Royals had lost the final of the first season against Janakpur Bolts, the team that finished last this season.