Janakpur Bolts have registered their second win in the third season of the Nepal Premier League. The Season 1 champions defeated Pokhara Avengers nine runs in their third league-stage fixture on Sunday.

Having been invited to bat first, the Bolts put up a total of 147/7 on the board on the back of Trit Raj Das’s 61 off 55.

“It is not easy to score runs on this pitch,” Das said after bagging the player of the match award. “The plan was to score in bad deliveries, and that is what I did.”

Abhisekh Tiwari (24 off 10), Moeen Ali (21 off 16) and Jimmy Neesham (11 off 11) were the only other Janakpur batters to score in double figures.

Bangladeshi cricket icon Shakib Al Hasan picked three wickets in his four overs for Pokhara, giving away only 15 runs. Chamika Karunaratne bagged two wickets, while Mahedi Hasan and Mohammad Saifuddin claimed one each.

However, the average target turned out to pose an uphill battle for Pokhara.

Pokhara lost their openers—Mahedi Hasan (8 off 4) and Dinesh Kharel (3 off 9)—early. Kushal Bhurtel, the Pokhara skipper, then came in at three and tried bringing the team back in the chase.

Bhurtel even discouraged Rahul Yadav, the teenager making headlines in the third season, with two consecutive fours in his first spell of the match. It saw Yadav called back only in the 19th over.

Bhurtel, meanwhile, departed as the third wicket in the third ball of the seventh over. The skipper scored 35 off 24, which was of not much help for the Avengers.

Pokhara’s batting order crumbled after Bhurtel’s departure. Bipin Acharya (20 off 19) was the second-highest run scorer for the Avengers, followed by Bipin Khatri (17 off 14) and Kiran Thagunna (15 off 5).

Moeen Ali bagged three wickets for the Bolts, while captain Harmeet Singh and Saif Hassan took two each. Lalit Narayan Rajbanshi and Neesham also claimed one each as the Avengers could only manage 138/9 in the second innings.

It was the Avengers’ second match of the season. And they have lost both.

“It was not a very bad start for us with the bat,” Avengers’ Bipin Khatri told the media in the press conference. “We also had hopes in other batters in the middle order, but it was not our day.”

The Avengers will play Lumbini Lions on Tuesday, after the first match of the day between Janakpur and Biratnagar Kings.

Meanwhile, there is a double header on Monday—Karnali Yaks vs Kathmandu Gorkhas followed by Chitwan Rhinos vs Sudurpaschim Royals.