Sompal Kami's 62* and 4 Wickets Power Karnali Win

Karnali Yaks captain Sompal Kami produced the defining all-round performance of NPL Season 3 so far, taking four wickets and then striking an unbeaten 62 as Karnali chased down 187 against Biratnagar Kings with one ball to spare in Match 6 at Kirtipur.

Captain's Rescue From 57 for 5

When Sompal Kami walked out to bat, Karnali Yaks were in trouble. Chasing 187 against Biratnagar Kings at the TU Ground in Kirtipur, Karnali had lost five wickets for 57 inside seven overs, and the team that had looked so composed in beating Janakpur Bolts in its opener was staring at a heavy defeat. What followed was a captain's innings in the fullest sense: Kami first steadied the chase with Pawan Sarraf, adding 66 runs for the sixth wicket, and then finished it with Gulshan Jha, the pair putting on an unbroken 64 for the seventh wicket to reach 187 for six in 19.5 overs.

Kami finished on 62 not out off 32 balls, with four fours and three sixes, and Karnali collected 62 runs without losing a wicket in the final five overs. Even the opposition captain acknowledged the scale of the performance. Biratnagar skipper Sandeep Lamichhane said: “Sompal dai deserves full credit for this. He performed well in both batting and bowling. He stayed at the crease until the end and, along with Pawan Sarraf and Gulshan Jha, led the team to victory.” It is rare for a beaten captain to be that generous, and rarer still for the praise to be that precise: Kami did not just bat well or bowl well, he owned both halves of the match.

Four Wickets First: Bam, Mathews, Russell, Asalanka

Long before the chase began, Kami had already shaped the match with the ball. After winning the toss and electing to field, Karnali watched Lokesh Bam blast 87 off 52 balls, with three fours and nine sixes, to carry Biratnagar to 186 for seven. Bam added 67 for the fourth wicket with Angelo Mathews, who made 31, and Andre Russell chipped in with 27 off 15 balls late on. Without Kami's spell, Biratnagar's total could easily have passed 200.

Kami finished with four wickets for 33 runs in his four overs, dismissing Bam himself, caught and bowled, along with Mathews, Russell and Charith Asalanka. Scotland's Mark Watt was the only other Karnali bowler to go at under six an over, taking one for 23. The contrast mattered: Biratnagar's innings had one dominant batter and little else, while Karnali's attack had one bowler who kept taking the wickets that stopped the innings from running away. That is the quiet part of an all-round performance, and it is why the chase stayed at 187 rather than ballooning beyond reach.

The Final Over and the Dropped Catch

Karnali needed eight runs from the final over, bowled by Sandeep himself. Kami took a single off the first ball, Jha collected two off the second and one off the third, and then Biratnagar's evening unravelled completely when Bam dropped a catch offered by Jha. Kami sealed the win with two runs off each of the next two deliveries, completing the chase with one ball remaining. It was the second time in the match that Biratnagar's fielding had let them down at the decisive moment, and Sandeep did not hide from it afterwards.

“Our fielding was very poor today. Such performance is not acceptable for any team. We dropped four-five important catches,” Sandeep said at the post-match press conference. He added that dew in the second innings made the ball difficult to grip and the pitch easier for batting, but that only underlined the point: in conditions that already favoured the chasing side, Biratnagar could not afford to give Karnali extra lives. Jha, dropped at the death, finished unbeaten on 28 off 21 balls, and his reprieve is now the single most expensive moment of Biratnagar's season.

What Two Wins Mean for Karnali

The result leaves Karnali alone at the top of the points table with four points from two matches, ahead of a schedule that next pits them against Kathmandu Gorkhas on November 2. That is a striking turnaround for a franchise that slipped to sixth in the second season after reaching the qualifiers in the inaugural edition. Two wins built on different strengths, a 19-run defence against Janakpur followed by a last-over chase against Biratnagar, suggest this is not a hot streak but a balanced side: a captain who bowls at the death and bats in the middle order, a spinner in Watt who controls the middle overs, and finishers in Sarraf and Jha who do not panic at 57 for five.

For Biratnagar, the picture is the reverse. Two defeats from two matches, a batting unit that leans heavily on Bam, and a fielding display their own captain called unacceptable leave them with no margin left before the season settles. Karnali, meanwhile, have found something every title side needs early: a player the rest of the team can follow into a lost position and still believe in. On Thursday night at Kirtipur, that player was their captain, with bat and ball, in the same match.