Lalit Rajbanshi, Kushal Bhurtel set up Nepal's opening win

Spinners Kushal Bhurtel and Lalit Rajbanshi shared seven wickets between them to give Nepal a winning start to their cricket campaign in the Asian Games, in Nisshin. They restricted Afghanistan to 102 for 7 in 20 overs, after which Nepal chased the target with five wickets and 16 balls to spare.

This was Afghanistan's first defeat in the competition after they had also started with a win against Japan on Thursday.

After opting to bat, Afghanistan were reduced to 16 for 3 in the fifth over, with left-arm fingerspinner Rajbanshi accounting for all three wickets in his three overs in the powerplay. Faisal Ahmadzai, who was making his T20I debut for Afghanistan, scored 30 off 33 balls and Najibullah Zadran chalked up an identical score to help their team recover briefly.

Bhurtel, the legspinner, though ran through the middle order, bagging figures of 4 for 21 in his four overs. Apart from Najibullah and Ahmadzai, no other Afghanistan batter passed 20.

Bhurtel then fell for a duck in the first over of Nepal's chase and by the seventh over, they were wobbling at 31 for 3. Sundeep Jora (34) and former captain Rohit Paudel (33 not out) then stabilised the chase and put Nepal back on the path to victory. Paul remained unbeaten, along with Gulsan Jha, to get the job done for Nepal in the 18th over.