Barras suffer two losses

THE Papua New Guinea Barramundis suffered back-to-back losses in the Cricket World Cup League Two this week after going down to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Nepal.
The Barras’ first one-day international of the year saw them go down to hosts UAE by seven wickets (33 balls left) with PNG managing to score eight for 176 runs after winning the toss.
Barras skipper Assad Vala (46 from 72), Simon Atai (25 from 32) and Charles Amini (23 from 51) led the run count.
But it was not enough against the superior bowling of UAE’s Basil Hameed who bagged 4/19 to be named as the player of the match title.
UAE chased down their target through Asif Khan (81 from 102), Vriitya Aravind (40 from 68) and Chundangapoyil Rizwan (26 from 65) with a total of 3/179 (in 45 overs).
PNG came out fighting in their second match on Wednesday against Nepal with Charles Amini Jr (59 from 82) leading the Barras, but the close encounter saw Vala’s men lose by two wickets.
Amini, Chad Soper (35 from 74) and Tony Ura (27 from 34) put on strong performances as PNG finished the first innings with 204/8.
Rohit Paudel (60 from 83) was named as the player of the match with Nepal surpassing PNG’s total in 49.2 overs for a score of 208/8.
“Vala and Amini gave us a chance by putting on a good partnership in the middle order,” Barras coach Carl Sandri said.
“However, the other batters around them couldn’t put enough runs on the board to assist and give us a big total to defend.
“It was a great effort in fielding.
“But we have to solve our batting issues moving forward. We need to really look into our batting quickly and have players find their way and start to put some runs on the scoreboard.”