KIR­TIPUR, Nepal – An en­er­getic 74 from their cap­tain Ros­ton Chase was trumped by a dy­nam­ic hun­dred from op­pos­ing cap­tain Ro­hit Paudel, and West In­dies “A” en­dured a four-wick­et de­feat against hosts Nepal in the first Twen­ty20 match of their se­ries on Sat­ur­day.

Chase cracked nine fours and two six­es from 46 balls and was the cor­ner­stone up­on for the Caribbean side’s to­tal of 204 for five from their al­lo­ca­tion of 20 overs at the Trib­hu­van Uni­ver­si­ty In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Ground.

But the vis­i­tors had no an­swer for Paudel, whose 112 off 54 balls in­clud­ed 10 fours and six six­es, led a suc­cess­ful chase for the Nepalese on a flat pitch and en­abled them to reach their tar­get with two balls re­main­ing and take a 1-0 lead in the five-match se­ries.

The new-ball pair of Matthew Forde and left-arm pac­er Obed Mc­Coy ac­count­ed for the Nepal open­ers Anil Sah caught at mid-wick­et for five and Kushal Bhur­tel caught be­hind for 16 re­spec­tive­ly, and the home team stum­bled to 43 for two at the close of the Pow­er Play.

A throw from John­son Charles at square leg to wick­et­keep­er An­dre Fletch­er to run out Kushal Mal­la for 16 meant that the Nepalese were 82 for three at the halfway stage, and the bal­ance was firm­ly tilt­ed in favour of West In­dies “A”.

But the Caribbean side came un­der the ham­mer from the fear­less Paudel, and he dom­i­nat­ed a stand of 64 for the fourth wick­et with Dipen­dra Singh Airee who trans­formed the com­plex­ion of the match and reached his land­mark from 47 balls with a deuce through square leg off Mc­Coy in the 18th over.

When Forde got the 21-year-old Nepal cap­tain caught be­hind, his side need­ed 13 from 11 balls, and Pratis Ghar­ti Chhetri en­tered and drove the next ball to long-off for a bound­ary to put the hosts with­in reach of the his­toric win.

Chunky pac­er Os­hane Thomas was en­trust­ed with the fi­nal over with the Nepalese re­quir­ing nine to win, but he con­ced­ed back-to-back bound­aries to Gul­shan Jha af­ter on­ly giv­ing away sin­gles off the first two balls to seal the fate of the vis­i­tors.

The sec­ond match of the se­ries will be played on Sun­day at the same venue.

Ear­li­er, Chase shared suc­ces­sive half-cen­tu­ry stands with Kea­cy Car­ty and fel­low Bar­ba­di­an Kadeem Al­leyne, af­ter a live­ly start from left-han­der Al­ick Athanaze, that paved the way for the chal­leng­ing West In­dies “A” to­tal.

Put in to bat, the Caribbean side raced to 77 for two at the close of the Pow­er Play but lost open­er John­son Charles bowled for a two-ball duck in the first over, and An­dre Fletch­er run out for 13 in the fourth over.

Athanaze drove the ear­ly mo­men­tum for West In­dies “A” with a brisk 47 be­fore he was caught at fine leg from a top-edged slog-sweep off Paudel, bowl­ing his off-spin, in the sev­enth over, and the vis­i­tors were 86 for three.

Car­ty came to the crease, cruised to 38, and con­sol­i­dat­ed with Chase in a stand of 60 for the fourth wick­et be­fore he was caught on the cov­er bound­ary, slic­ing a dri­ve off pac­er Abi­nash Bo­hara in the 15th over.

Chase reached his 50 from 36 balls when he pulled Bo­hara over mid-wick­et for his fifth bound­ary in the 17th over, and he shared 57 with Al­leyne be­fore he was caught in “cow cor­ner”, swing­ing a full toss from off-spin­ner Dipen­dra Singh Airee with two balls re­main­ing in the in­nings.

The tour to Nepal is a first for any West In­dies side, and ac­cord­ing to lead se­lec­tor Desmond Haynes serves as an­oth­er phase in prepa­ra­tion for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup to be staged in June in the Caribbean and the Unit­ed States.

He added it is an in­valu­able op­por­tu­ni­ty to get World Cup hope­fuls and emerg­ing prospects play­ing com­pet­i­tive T20 match­es.

Sum­merise Scores

WEST IN­DIES “A” 204 for five off 20 overs (Ros­ton Chase 74, Al­ick Athanaze 47, Kea­cy Car­ty 38) vs NEPAL 206 for six off 19.4 overs (Ro­hit Paudel 112, Dipen­dra Singh Airee 24; Obed Mc­Coy 2-34, Matthew Forde 2-49). Nepal won by four wick­ets.

(CMC)