Nepal’s young guns were knocked out of the SAFF Men’s U17 Championship with a score of 0-3 by India.

In the match played at Colombo Racecourse Stadium in Sri Lanka on Thursday night, India scored thrice in the second half to crash Nepal out of the tournament.

Gunleiba Wangkheirakpam opened the account for India, the team that have now defeated Nepal for a dozen times in 13 encounters at SAFF’s men’s underage (U15/U16/U17) tournaments since 2011, in the 61st minute.

Azlaan Shah Kh was the one who scored the second goal in the 80th minute in a counter-attack by India.

While it looked like the score and result were settled, India made a change—in the score. With 20 seconds left for the four minutes of additional time to end, Diamond Singh made it 3-0.

Meanwhile, India and Nepal both had chances to score more. Nepal failed all while India capitalised.

India had shown their intent as they created a good chance with 90 seconds on the clock as the referee blew the first whistle. Nepal showed a great fight and they had already troubled India’s goalie by five minutes into the game.

India will now face Bangladesh in the fixture for the title on Saturday, September 27.

Bangladesh reached the final defeating Pakistan 2-0 in the other semifinal.

Bangladesh are yet to lift the title in the U17 category, having won the U15 and U16 events once each in 2018 and 2015, respectively.

On the other hand, India have won the underage men’s SAFF events six times in nine editions. They will be looking to make it seven in 10 editions.