Pokhara Avengers Winless After Three NPL Defeats

Pokhara Avengers are the only winless team left in NPL Season 3, and the slide is getting worse, not better: 145, then 138, then 97.

Three defeats, one pattern

Pokhara Avengers did not lose three different kinds of matches. They lost the same match three times, with the details getting uglier each time. Against Sudurpaschim Royals on October 28, they posted 145 for 7 and watched it chased down with 19 balls to spare. Against Janakpur Bolts on November 1, they chased 148 and fell nine runs short. Against Lumbini Lions on November 3, they managed only 97 for 9, with no batter past 25, and the chase was finished in 11.4 overs.

The through-line is not bad luck. It is a batting line-up that has never, in three attempts, produced the one innings that changes a game. The highest individual score by a Pokhara batter this season is 40 not out, made by Arjun Gharti at the end of the opening match. Since then, the team's top scores have been 35 and 25.

That is why this is not just a slow start. Pokhara are the only team in the league yet to reach the playoffs in either of the first two seasons, finishing seventh in 2024 and fifth in 2025. Three matches in, the drought is not the story. The batting is.

The batting numbers behind the winless start

The totals tell the story in one line: 145 for 7, 138 for 9, 97 for 9. That is 380 runs in 60 overs, and the direction of travel is the worrying part. Pokhara's best batting day was their first, when Mahedi Hasan made 32 at the top and Gharti finished unbeaten on 40. Even that day, captain Kushal Bhurtel made only 21, and the middle order never kicked on. Against Janakpur, Bhurtel top-scored with 35 off 24 balls, Bipin Acharya made 20, and nobody else passed 17. Against Lumbini, the collapse was total: 23 for 2 in the powerplay, 50 only after 88 balls, and the biggest partnership of the innings, 21 runs, came from the ninth wicket.

Bhurtel's own tournament sums up the problem: 21, 35 and 14, with starts in every game and a substantial score in none of them. Shakib Al Hasan, the signing meant to anchor the side, has made 14, 9 and 3 with the bat. Chamika Karunaratne top-scored against Lumbini with 25, but that only underlines how low the bar has fallen.

Compare that with what opponents have done to Pokhara. Rohit Paudel finished unbeaten on 47 in the Lumbini chase, sharing an unbroken 77-run stand. Trit Raj Das made 61 against Pokhara for Janakpur, and Dipendra Singh Airee finished unbeaten on 51 for Sudurpaschim. Three opponents, three match-defining innings. Pokhara have had none, and the points table reflects it: Lumbini lead with five points, four teams sit on four, and Pokhara sit alone at the bottom on zero.

The captain's search for a settled combination

What makes this more than a run of poor form is that the captain has said so himself. After the nine-run defeat to Janakpur, Bhurtel was asked whether Pokhara were still trying to find their best combination. “Absolutely right. We are trying to find the right combination. Today we went with more all-rounders. I think we still have five more games. We will try to do our best in the next match,” he said. That was honest, and it was also an admission: three games into a seven-game league stage, Pokhara did not yet know their best eleven.

He had a point about fine margins, too. On the same evening, Bhurtel said of the Janakpur chase: “Yes the chase was always on. Even with Karunaratne and Bipin (Acharya), one partnership would have made the scenario different. I think we gave around 15 runs extra.” One partnership is exactly what Pokhara have lacked. Against Janakpur, the fall of Bhurtel for 35 broke the chase. Against Lumbini, no partnership passed 21 until the ninth wicket.

After the Janakpur defeat, Bipin Khatri struck a similar note, telling the media: “It was not a very bad start for us with the bat. We also had hopes in other batters in the middle order, but it was not our day.” When the players themselves say the combination is still unsettled and the middle order is still hoped-for rather than relied upon, the problem is not confidence. It is selection and structure.

Shakib's quiet bat and the overseas balance

Shakib's tournament captures Pokhara's dilemma. With the ball, he has been excellent in patches: three wickets for 15 runs against Janakpur was the best bowling performance of that match. With the bat, he has made 14, 9 and 3, and against Lumbini he was dismissed by Paudel for three at the moment Pokhara most needed him to stay. Bhurtel, defending his senior player after the Janakpur game, said: “Absolutely he is a legend of the game. His bowling was great, not only in today's match, but also in previous match. His batting is very useful for these wickets. He will come back with the bat.”

That faith may yet be repaid, but Pokhara cannot keep paying for it with defeats while they wait. The overseas balance is the other half of the same problem: Mahedi Hasan has made 32, 8 and 13, Karunaratne's contributions have been scattered, and the team has already changed its playing eleven to chase a combination that has not settled. A franchise cannot afford two overseas slots to be quiet with the bat at the same time.

This is where the coach, Ajantha Mendis, faces his hardest call. Pokhara's bowling has not been the disgrace, but bowling cannot win games alone when the team bats first and posts 145, or chases and folds for 97. The next selection has to be made on batting evidence, not reputation, because the evidence of three matches is now too consistent to ignore.

What four remaining games must deliver

Here is the arithmetic Pokhara now live with. Four league matches remain, and the top four teams reach the playoffs. Win three of the four and Pokhara finish on six points, which may or may not be enough in a table where four teams already have four points. Win all four and they finish on eight, which changes the conversation entirely. Lose one more, and the season becomes about pride rather than qualification. There is almost no margin left.

The next match is against Chitwan Rhinos on November 6 at Kirtipur, Match 17 of the season. Chitwan have three points so far. For Pokhara, the fixture tests everything described here: can Bhurtel turn a start into fifty, can Shakib produce the innings his captain has promised is coming, and can one partnership finally last long enough to change a game?

The honest answer is that nobody outside the dressing room knows, and that is itself the story of Pokhara's season so far. This is a franchise that has never reached the playoffs, that signed the biggest names available to change that, and that now finds itself bottom of the table because its batters have not delivered a single match-winning innings in three attempts. The schedule gives Pokhara four chances to answer. After three defeats, they need to start answering now.