Tribhuvan Army Club could not prevent Nepal Police Club from again besting them in the final of the Jay Trophy, Nepal’s only multi-day red-ball cricket tournament.

As in the previous edition, Nepal Police defeated Tribhuvan Army in the final to lift the Jay Trophy this edition.

The Jay Trophy began on February 20 between the top four teams of the previous season of the Men’s PM Cup. Police and Army ousted APF and Bagmati Province to finish as the top two teams in the single round-robin league stage and enter the final for the second consecutive season.

While the group stage was played across two days, the final, which was rescheduled for the second time to March 17-19, was played across three days.

Police had won the toss and elected to field first. Before Day 3 began at the Upper Mulpani Cricket Ground on Thursday, Army were batting at 178/9 in their second innings.

Police and Army saw an equal score in their respective first innings, as both got bundled out at 221 runs.

From 178/9 by Stumps on Wednesday, Aakash Chand and Sompal Kami built a 49-run partnership for the last wicket and took the score to 226 in 74.2 overs. Chand (37 off 102) got caught out, while Kami (23 off 76), who bagged a fifer in Police’s first innings, stayed not out.

Sagar Dhakal picked four wickets, while Karan KC and Lalit Narayan Rajbanshi bagged three each, as Police now required 227 to win.

When Police’s Amit Shrestha departed for a golden duck in the very first ball of the second over, getting clean bowled by Chand, Army expected a good start. However, in-at-three Rashid Khan started building a quality partnership with Dinesh Kharel.

When Kharel (25 off 58) departed as the second wicket in 15.4 overs, Police were at 71. Khan then completed his fifty with Kushal Bhurtel, who also managed a half-century before departing as the third wicket in 40.1 overs.

When Bhurtel (51 off 64) departed, Police required 62 runs to win. After Khan’s departure, after adding 81 off 128, Dilsad Ali took the helm.

Ali could not build a good partnership with Aarif Sheikh (14 off 21) and Gulshan Kumar Jha (1 off 4). But with Shankar Rana, in at eight, Ali completed the chase.

With Ali at 31 off 57, Rana smashed the second and fourth balls of Shahab Alam in the 57th over for fours and saw the total score reach 230/6.

Army had used eight bowlers on the final day. Of the 56.4 overs bowled by Army, Alam bowled 24.4 overs and Pawan Karki bowled 16 overs. None of the other six bowlers, including Kami, bowled more than five overs each.

Khan was declared the player of the match. Before 81 off 128 with the bat in the second innings, Khan had also picked four wickets with the ball on Day 1.

Meanwhile, Bagmati’s Ishan Pandey was declared the best batter of the tournament. Pandey scored 331 runs in six innings. He was behind Bhurtel, who scored 336 runs in seven innings, in the list of batters with most runs in the tournament.

Rajbanshi, who picked 26 wickets in eight innings, was declared the best bowler as well as the best player of the tournament.

While Police won by four wickets this edition, they had defeated Army by 28 runs in the final of the previous edition.