Biratnagar's Three Fifties: An NPL First in Match 12

Biratnagar Kings made Nepal Premier League history in Match 12. Three of their batters passed fifty in the same innings, the first time that has happened in the league, and the Kings held on to beat Janakpur Bolts by two runs at the TU International Cricket Ground in Kirtipur on 3 November 2026.

Imran Sheikh and Lokesh Bam lay the platform

Janakpur won the toss and chose to bowl first in the opening match of the day. The call looked sound at first. Shehan Jayasuriya was stumped off Moeen Ali for 1, and Biratnagar were one down with almost nothing on the board.

Imran Sheikh steadied the innings from that point. He scored 56 from 45 balls, with five fours and two sixes, and gave Biratnagar a base to build on. His wicket fell with the total on 109, but by then the Kings had a platform and the hard work against the new ball was done.

Lokesh Bam carried the innings forward with a fifty of his own. He scored 50 from 40 balls, with three fours and three sixes, before Abishek Tiwari had him caught by Lalit Rajbanshi in the final over. The fifty was Bam's second of the season, and it made him the first player in the tournament to reach two half-centuries.

Bam's season had already marked him out as the batting leader of Season 3. He led the run charts with 188 runs from four matches, and his 87 against Karnali Yaks stood as the highest individual score of the season. The fifty against Janakpur added another layer to that record, because it came in a winning cause on a day when Biratnagar needed runs from more than one batter.

Russell finishes, and the record is set

Andre Russell supplied the finish that turned a good total into a strong one. He struck an unbeaten 52 from 29 balls, with two fours and five sixes, and stayed at the crease to the end of the innings. Shubham Ranjane gave him support with 7 not out, and Biratnagar closed on 174 for 3 from their 20 overs.

The three fifties set a new mark for the league. No team in the first two seasons, and none in the opening 11 matches of Season 3, had put three batters past fifty in one innings. Biratnagar did it with a mix that says plenty about their batting: a Nepali opener in Bam, a Nepali middle-order batter in Imran, and an overseas finisher in Russell.

The match produced a fourth fifty as well. Saif Hassan led the Janakpur reply with 71 from 48 balls, and four half-centuries in one match underlined how good the Kirtipur pitch was for batting on the day. The record belongs to Biratnagar, but the match as a whole was a batting contest from start to finish.

Janakpur’s chase falls two runs short

Janakpur's chase stayed alive deep into the final overs. Saif Hassan hit five sixes in his 71, and Bishal Shusling added 43 from 30 balls. The pair shared 76 runs for the fourth wicket and kept Janakpur in touch with the required rate after the early wickets.

James Neesham gave the chase another push with 27 from 15 balls, including three sixes, and shared 56 runs with Saif Hassan for the fifth wicket. Janakpur still needed runs at the death, and the target of 175 proved two runs too many. They finished on 172 for 7 from 20 overs.

Russell settles it with the ball

Russell settled the match with the ball after setting it up with the bat. He took 4 wickets for 45 runs, removing Saif Hassan, Anil Sah, Moeen Ali and captain Harmeet Singh. Angelo Mathews took two wickets and Rupesh Singh took one, and the wickets came at the moments when Janakpur looked ready to take the match away.

Janakpur's bowlers had their own moments in the Biratnagar innings. Abishek Tiwari took two wickets for 38 runs, and Moeen Ali took one wicket for 13 runs. The pair kept Biratnagar from running away with the innings, but the three fifties meant the Kings always had a batter ready to take the scoring forward.

From two defeats to the top of the table

The win changed Biratnagar's season. They had started Season 3 with two defeats, an eight-run loss to Chitwan Rhinos and a four-wicket loss to Karnali Yaks. The five-over win over Sudurpaschim Royals gave them their first points, and the two-run win over Janakpur made it two wins in a row.

The two-run win also put Biratnagar on top of the points table after 12 matches. A team that had sat at the bottom after two games now led the league, and the turnaround rested on batting depth rather than one star innings. Three fifties in one innings is the clearest proof of that depth.

The season numbers after 13 matches tell the same story. Eleven half-centuries had been scored in the tournament, and seven of them belonged to Nepali batters. Bam led the run charts, and his two fifties stood alone at the top of that list. The overseas fifties had come from Russell, Moeen Ali, Saif Hassan and Dawid Malan.

What comes next

For Janakpur, the defeat was a narrow one that still carried a warning. Saif Hassan's 71 showed their batting can match any total in the league, but the chase fell short by two runs after the middle order left too much for the final overs. The defeat left Janakpur chasing the playoff places.

Biratnagar next face Kathmandu Gorkhas in Match 15 on 5 November. The Kings take a batting line-up that has now produced a league first, a captain in Sandeep Lamichhane who has kept the bowling attack steady, and a points-table lead built on back-to-back wins. The three-fifties innings will be the standard their batters are now judged against.