Nepal registered a win in their first official warm-up fixture before the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Tuesday. They defeated the UAE by seven wickets.

Aarif Sheikh and Dipendra Singh Airee were the heroes for Nepal in the win as the duo stayed not out with individual fifties while chasing 146.

Aarif and Airee had a 103-run partnership for the fourth wicket as Nepal completed the chase with three overs to spare.

At 144 runs in 16.5 overs, Nepal needed two runs to win. With Muhammad Arfan bowling the 17th over, Aarif hit the last ball of the over for a four.

With the boundary, Aarif stood not out at 61 off 37. On the non-striker end, Airee was at 50 off 31.

There was no decent start from the Nepali top order before Aarif and Airee brought Nepal back to the game. The two openers—Kushal Bhurtel and Aasif Sheikh—scored eight runs each, while skipper Rohit Kumar Paudel was run out at 16 off 19.

Winning the toss and electing to field first in the match played under the floodlights, Nepal restricted the UAE to 145/6.

It would have been a lower total for the UAE had it not been for Harshit Kaushik (35 off 24) and Sohaib Khan (38 off 27) scoring big in the last five overs. From 80/5 at the end of 15 overs, the UAE scored 65 runs in the remaining five overs.

Airee also bagged a wicket, while spinner Sandeep Lamichhane and pacer Karan KC took two each.

Nepal’s second and last warm-up match before their World Cup group-stage fixture is against Canada on February 5.