Nepal crushes West Indies in 1st T20I to secure their first win against a Full Member side

Nepal secured their first win against a Full Member side, the West Indies, after bagging a 19-run win in the first T20I at Sharjah Cricket Stadium on Saturday, September 27.

Delving into the details of the first T20I, Nepal batted first after losing the toss. Skipper Rohit Paudel (38), middle-order batters Kushal Malla (30), and Gulshan Jha (22) played excellent knocks to take their side to 148/8 in 20 overs. West Indies all-rounder Jason Holder was exceptional with a four-wicket haul to restrict the opposition to a low total.

In response, the West Indies could score only 129/9 in 20 overs, suffering a 19-run loss. West Indies middle-order batter Navin Bidaisee was the top scorer, amassing 22 runs from 25 balls. Kushal Bhurtel scalped two important wickets to turn the game upside down.

On that note, let’s take a look at who said what after NEP vs WI, 1st T20I.

Nepal captain & Player of the Match, Rohit Paudel 

It's feeling great, a long wait to beat a Test playing country, that too it has come in a series we have hosted in UAE. 150-160 was par here, looking at the previous series here, teams were winning after scoring 150-160. 80-90 per cent we have matched our skills, the spinners were great today as well as the experienced Karan and Sompal. 

Want to dedicate this award to the martyrs back home who participated in the protest. The last month has not been great for us, so if we can give a little bit of happiness to the people of Nepal, I think that would be great. (Has a message in Nepali for the people back home) It's just the beginning, lot more to come. The mindset was very clear, if we are coming here, we are there to win the series. We are still grounded, we will do the process right and we will see whatever comes next.

West Indies captain, Akeal Hosein 

Both sides played good cricket, unfortunately we did not do good work to win. Thought it was a decent score, good pitch, maybe we gave away 15 runs too much, having said that we were very confident in chasing this down. They fielded well and they got two run-outs and those things break the back of a batting team. 

(on his batting unit) They have got the talent and the skill, it's about going out there and executing. We need to set a better platform, to give the guys a fair chance to come and chase it down. Without that, we will always be behind the eight-ball.

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