Pokhara Opt to Bowl as NPL Resumes After Washout

Pokhara Avengers won the toss and sent Janakpur Bolts in to bat in Match 9 of the Nepal Premier League at Kirtipur on Sunday evening, a day after rain wrecked Saturday's programme. The match is scheduled as a full twenty-over contest, with sunshine drying an outfield that had been waterlogged less than a day earlier.

Pokhara's Toss Call at Kirtipur

Pokhara Avengers captain Kushal Bhurtel won the toss against Janakpur Bolts at the TU International Cricket Ground in Kirtipur on Sunday evening and chose to bowl first, inviting Janakpur to bat in the 5 pm fixture. Ratopati's toss report names Bhurtel as the toss winner and records the decision plainly: Pokhara bowl first, Janakpur bat first. After a Saturday defined by inspections, delays and a match that started more than ninety minutes late, a toss that happened on time was the most normal thing the tournament had produced all weekend.

Janakpur came into the match led by captain Harmeet Singh, with Moeen Ali among their overseas names, while Pokhara's squad includes Shakib Al Hasan alongside Bhurtel. The toss photograph tells the story at a glance: the two captains in their franchise colours, Harmeet Singh in Janakpur's pink and Bhurtel in Pokhara's green, standing for formalities that Saturday's weather had repeatedly denied the tournament. For Pokhara, chasing is a statement of intent from a side still searching for its first points.

The fixture is Match 9 of the third Nepal Premier League season, and it carries weight beyond the two points on offer. Janakpur sit on two points from two matches; Pokhara have none from one. Only the top four teams reach the playoffs, so every early result tightens or loosens the race. A win would give Janakpur four points from three matches; a win would open Pokhara's account.

A Dry Outfield After Saturday's Washout

Sunday's match only happened on schedule because the weather finally relented. The Kathmandu Post reported that sunshine had dried out the rain-soaked outfield at Kirtipur and that the game was expected to begin on time, a sharp contrast with Saturday, when persistent rain forced the abandonment of the opening match and left the second contest at the mercy of repeated inspections. That second match, between Biratnagar Kings and Sudurpaschim Royals, eventually went ahead as a five-over game, but only after a delay that pushed the start to 9:15 pm and raised serious questions about how the tournament's rules had been applied. The full account of that late start is covered in our report on the rulebook questions left by Match 8.

There was also a practical problem to fix before Sunday. A floodlight at the Chobhar end failed to come on at the scheduled time during Saturday's match, and tournament coordinator and Cricket Association of Nepal member Dhirendra Saud said the problem had been fixed and the lights would work properly for Sunday's fixture. It sounds minor until a day-night match depends on it. Saud's assurance was therefore more than housekeeping: it promised the basic conditions for a normal evening of cricket were back in place.

The contrast between the two days is the real story of the weekend so far. Saturday's cricket was improvised: an abandoned match, a shortened match, a shortened boundary, a late-night finish. Sunday offered the tournament a chance to look like itself again, with a full twenty-over match, a dry outfield and floodlights that worked. Whether the cricket lived up to that billing would be decided on the field, but the conditions, for once, were not the headline. That alone felt like progress after a day in which the weather and the rulebook had shared top billing with the players.

Two Teams Heading in Opposite Directions

The form guide pointed in Janakpur's favour, but not overwhelmingly. Their season began with a 19-run defeat to Karnali Yaks, before they bounced back with an emphatic eight-wicket victory over Kathmandu Gorkhas in their second outing, the Kathmandu Post reported. They arrived at Match 9 as the more settled side, even if one win in two matches is a thin record on which to build a title defence.

Janakpur's preparations, however, have been disrupted by a problem no coach can solve on the training ground. The franchise is without Pakistanis Iftikhar Ahmed and Hunain Shah, who have returned home after the Pakistan Cricket Board declined to issue their no-objection certificates, and the franchise decided against paying the stipulated $25,000 fee, the Kathmandu Post reported. Losing two overseas players before the season had found its rhythm would unsettle any squad, and it has forced Janakpur to lean harder on the players who are available. That their second match still produced such a convincing win says something about the depth that remains, but the absence narrows their margin for error as the tournament wears on.

Pokhara, by contrast, arrived in Kirtipur with everything still to prove. They lost their opening match by six wickets to Sudurpaschim Royals and, as the Kathmandu Post put it, Bhurtel and his teammates were under pressure to deliver a stronger performance as they sought their first win of the season. One defeat is not a crisis, but in an eight-team league where only four sides reach the playoffs, a second defeat before the tournament is a week old would leave Pokhara chasing the pack from the start. Ratopati's preview noted that the sides have split their two previous NPL meetings, so neither team could claim a historical edge.

Why an On-Time, Full Match Matters

Sunday's fixture was also a test of the tournament itself. Saturday's chaos was not only about rain: a cutoff time passed, a team did not want to play, and a match started anyway. Speaking after that game, CAN secretary Paras Khadka defended playing once officials had declared the ground fit. “Once the match referee and umpires decide that the conditions are suitable for play, the match must go ahead. Technically, the game had to be played,” Khadka said. “When the overseas players were not ready to play, we urged them to take the field. That is why it took time.” He was equally direct about the alternative: “We could have directly declared a forfeit. But we tried our best to persuade them to play without creating a dispute.”

Biratnagar captain Sandeep Lamichhane offered the other side of the same evening. “Our players, including the overseas players, were fully ready to play. We wanted to play. But our position was that we would abide by whatever decision the officials made,” he said. He also spoke for the people who had waited longest: “For me, the most important thing is cricket. We should appreciate the spectators who stayed at the stadium from the time it rained in the afternoon until 11 or 12 at night, and the grounds staff who worked continuously to make the field fit for play.” Those two accounts explain why an ordinary Sunday evening mattered so much: the tournament needed a match that started on time, finished without a dispute, and gave supporters a reason to trust the next fixture.

The points table will eventually record Match 9 as two points for one team and none for the other, but the wider significance is harder to reduce to a number. A full, on-time match restores the basic bargain of a league: teams prepare, supporters travel, and the contest decides the outcome. Bhurtel's decision to bowl first, made in sunshine on a drying outfield, was a small, deliberate act of normality.