Nepal have qualified for the semifinal of the ACC Men’s U19 Premier Cup after registering their second win of the group stage against Hong Kong on Thursday.

Of the 14 teams, divided into two groups of three each and two others of four each, participating in the tournament hosted by the UAE, Nepal are in Group A with Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia. Each group is seeing the teams play one another in a single round-robin format in the 50-over format, with the top team from each group progressing to the semifinals.

The young Rhinos had defeated Saudi Arabia by eight wickets on November 25 to start the campaign on a high.

Chasing Saudi Arabia’s target of 219 runs, Nepal completed the chase in 30.4 overs thanks to a composed knock from opener Niraj Kumar Yadav (114 off 90) and in-at-three Nischal Kshetri (66 off 73).

And when the youngsters batted first against Hong Kong at Seven Districts Ground 2 on Thursday, Nepal posted 270/7 in the first innings. While the top order—Yadav (22 off 20), Vansh Chhetri (24 off 34) and Kshetri (3 off 7)—failed against Hong Kong, the middle and lower order took the helm.

Cibrin Shrestha (25 off 59), Dilsad Ali (32 off 50) and Roshan Bishwakarma (21 off 21) contributed decently, while captain Ashok Dhami got runout at 73 off 51 in the last ball of the innings. Darsh Sonar stayed not out at 45 off 58.

In turn, Hong Kong tried putting up a good fight, but failed against Nepal’s bowling attack.

Aprajit Poudel bagged four wickets in his 10 overs, giving 31 runs and bowling two maidens. Skipper Dhami also bowled two maidens in his 10-over spell and bagged three wickets while giving away only 29 runs. Dayanand Mandal, Sushil Bahadur Rawal and Bishwakarma also picked one wicket each as Hong Kong got bundled out at 151 runs in 40.5 overs.

Hong Kong’s captain Shiv Mathur (30 off 29) was the highest runscorer for his team as Nepal won by 119 runs.

Nepal are facing Malaysia, Group D topper, in the semifinal at Seven Districts Ground 1 in Ajman on Saturday. The other semifinal at Karwan Ground on the same day will see the hosts UAE, topper of Group B, facing Group C’s topper Oman.

The winners of the semifinals will play in the final on December 1, while the losers will compete for the third-place on the same day.