Mumbai, Feb 17 Nepal Captain Rohit Paudel gave credit to the lessons they learnt in the close defeat to England and the steely nerves shown by his bowlers and batters in the death overs for their maiden win in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup in 12 attempts in the final league match against Scotland at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Tuesday.
Nepal started the ICC T20 World Cup 2026 on a rousing note with a narrow defeat to England. But they suffered demoralising defeats to the West Indies and Italy. But the win against Scotland restored some pride and will be remembered for a long time.
Nepal looked down and out as Scotland were cruising handsomely at 130/1 in the 15th over, looking at a total close to 200. But Nepal fought back bravely with Sompal Kami claiming 3-25 and Nandan Yadav bagging 2-34 as they restricted Scotland to 170/7 after electing to bowl first.
Nepal started their chase on a bright note, reaching 74 without loss. But three quick wickets by Michael Leask (3-30) had them reeling at 98/3 going into the last six overs. Dipendra Singh Airee smashed 50 not out off 23 balls and, with Gulshan Jha contributing 24 not out off 17 balls, took Nepal to 171/3 in 19.2 overs and secured a seven-wicket victory.
He said the win means a lot for him as he was playing his second T20 World Cup.
"This means a lot to me, my second World Cup as captain, and winning the first game in the last game of the league stage was very important to us as a team. Dipendra led the way," said Paudel in the post-match presentation
While praising Sompal Kami and Airee for their brilliant performance, Paudel also noted the raucous support from their fans, who have come in large numbers to support the team, after their defeat to England in the opener.
"After our game against England, they (fans) started booking tickets and supported us to the last game," he added.
Paudel gave credit to his bowlers for restricting Scotland to 170/7 and said their death bowling was great. "To slow down and restrict them to 170, our death bowling was great. Focussed more on dot balls than taking wickets," he said.
He admitted that his batters did not bat the way they would have liked, but said he was confident in Dipendra Airee and Gulshan Jha.
"This is not the way we wanted to play, but with Dipendra and Gulshan, they won the game for us. Dipendra deserves MoM. He has great talent. We kept our nerves calm, bowlers and batters. We learned a lot from the England game.
"To summarise this tournament, we wanted to play the way we did against England and Scotland. Italy was not the way we wanted to play. We will try to improve from here." Paudel signed off.
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