Nepal's convincing win over Ireland

Nepal 234-8 (50 overs, Veswarkar 82); Ireland 174 (45.3 overs, Morgan 86). Nepal won by 60 runs.

Nepal scored a convincing and thoroughly deserved 60-run win over fellow Associate side Ireland to earn a Plate Championship quarter-final against Uganda.

The Asian side made 234-8 after being put into bat by Eoin Morgan with Sharad Vesawkar making an impressive 82 before they bowled the Irish out for 174, despite Morgan's high-class 86.

Nepal captain Kanishka Chaugai got his side's innings off to a rapid start with 40 from just 36 balls including five fours and a six.

He and fellow opener Mahesh Chhetri added 54 for the first wicket with Chhetri's share just six, but once they departed in quick succession to Gary Kidd (2-32) Ireland were able to get a foothold in the match.

However, Veswarkar made sure Nepal maintained a degree of ascendancy with an innings that spanned 142 minutes and included four fours and a six from 116 balls faced.

He added 89 for the fourth wicket with vice-captain Paras Khadra, who struck four fours from 65 deliveries received.

For Ireland, opening bowler Niall McDarby once again excelled. After his 6-50 against England on Wednesday, the best figures of the tournament so far, he captured another three wickets against Nepal, this time at a cost of 43 runs, from nine overs.

James Hall collected 1-33 and the other wicket taker was McDarby's opening bowling partner Neil Gill, who took 1-62 in nine expensive overs, while there was also a run-out.

Ireland had high hopes of securing a win as Morgan and Andrew Poynter (28) added 66 for the fourth wicket but Morgan's departure, stumped by Chhetri off leg-spinning super sub Shashi Kesari proved a turning point.

Ireland lost their last seven wickets for 29 runs as they made a vain attempt to maintain an ever-rising asking rate.

The European qualifiers were left to reflect on how cruel cricket can be. Just over 24 hours earlier they had been close to beating England. One day later and they found themselves bottom of Group D with three defeats from three matches.

"Cricket can be like that," said coach Brian O'Rourke.

"The bottom line is we were beaten by the better side today and they were the better side from the first over.

"They imposed themselves and 234 is always a good score in this class of cricket.

"We got ourselves into a good position at 145-3 but the pressure of trying to maintain the run-rate caused us to have a big collapse."

Nepal managed to include an unusual tactic in their performance as their captain Chaugai was super subbed out of the game with Kesari coming on to replace him.

And the plan worked. Khadra took over as captain, Kesari got the vital wicket of Morgan and Chaugai got the chance to put his feet up in the pavilion.

"Kesari's wicket was the turning point of the match," said Nepal coach Roy Dias.

"We wanted to take Chaugai off to give him a good rest because he has been carrying a small (hamstring) injury and cramp and he was not needed to bowl. It meant we did not have to take any chances with him.

"This was a very important win for us because morale was down after the loss to Zimbabwe. We can now go on and do our best in the Plate and maybe we can get to the semi-finals. It is all down to the players," said Dias.

Nepal will play Uganda in the Plate Championship quarter-final next Tuesday while Ireland will face either New Zealand or Pakistan.