Hong Kong on the back foot against Nepal after first day's play

Hong Kong slumped to 7-74 at stumps on the first day in the 3-day ACC Premier League match against Nepal at the TU Cricket Ground in Khatmandu.

For the second match in a row, Hong Kong chose to field after stand-in captain Ravi Sujanani won the toss. Nepal made a cautious start as openers Paresh Lohani and Mahesh Chhetri combined for a partnership of 37. But at that score, both batsmen were dismissed as Najeeb Amar and Nadeem Ahmed grabbed a wicket each. But Hong Kong had to wait a while for the next wicket as Mehboob Alam (61) and Sarad Vesawkar (79) then put together a partnership of 89 runs with some sensible batting. The partnership was eventually broken when Nadeem picked up his second wicket. Nadeem and Najeeb bowled in tandem for a total of 47 overs, claiming seven wickets in the process. Apart from Alam and Vesawkar, none of the Nepali batsmen got on top of the Hong Kong attack, although a number of useful partnerships pushed their total over 200. Nadeem grabbed five wickets for 67 runs from his 23 overs while Najeeb finished with figures of 2-35 from 24 overs. Nepal eventually declared their innings closed at 217 for eight.

Nepal's gamble not to bat on paid immediate dividends as Hong Kong's revamped batting line-up slumped to 28 for 4. Hong Kong's cause was not helped by the run-outs of Mark Eames (20) and Adam Gunthorpe (2) while the express pace of Binod Das accounted for Imran Idrees (5) and Roy Lamsam (0). Things went from bad to worse for Hong Kong as they slipped to 6-46 and then 7-60, with only Ravi Sujanani (15) registering a double-digit score. At stumps, Hong Kong were teetering at 74 for seven, having avoided the embarrassment of following-on, with Najeeb Amar and Afzaal Haider at the crease. Ilyas Gul is still to bat having injured his hand making an unsuccessful attempt to make a catch off his own bowling.

Hong Kong face an up-hill battle to save the game and they'll be looking towards their bowlers to turn their fortunes around on day two.

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