KATHMANDU: With Bhim Sarki’s impressive batting with half-century, Nepal has set a target of 230 runs against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the tri-nation series under the ICC Cricket World Cup League-2.

Nepal won the toss and came into bat in the ongoing match at the Dubai International Cricket Ground in the UAE.

For Nepal, Bhim scored 70 runs in 99 balls with seven fours. Bhimm, who came to bat when Nepal was 49-3, completed 50 runs in 78 balls with four fours.

This is Bhim’s first fifty in ODI cricket. Before that, Bhim shared a 56-run partnership with Sandeep Lamichhane for the sixth wicket in the difficult situation of Nepal’s scoreboard 68-5 and raised the team’s innings. Sandeep scored 27 runs off 40 balls with one boundary.

Similarly, Bhim also shared a partnership of 56 runs with Aarif Sheikh for the seventh wicket. Aarif remained unbeaten on 43 runs. Kushal Malla added 32 runs while Gyanendra Malla and Pratish GC added 11 runs each.

Opener Aasif Sheikh returned to the pavilion as the first wicket when Nepal scored 14 runs. When Nepal added 34 runs, it lost another opener Gyanendra Malla as the second wicket. After adding 49 runs, Nepal lost its captain Rohit Kumar Paudel.

Junaid Siddiqui of UAE took three wickets. Rohat Mustafa and Aryan Lakra took two wickets. Karthik Meiyappan took one wicket.

In the League-2 table, UAE is in fifth place with 31 points from 31 matches with 14 wins and 14 losses. One match of UAE was a tie and two matches were scoreless.

Nepal is in sixth place with 30 points from 31 matches with 14 wins and 15 losses. One match of Nepal was tied and one match was without result.