Nawayug Shrestha was the saviour, who scored two goals one each in the last minute of the extra-time and the added one-minute injury time for 10-man Nepal, and completed his hat-trick. It was his second hat-trick in the tournament. He had scored three goals against Bhutan in the group stage match also.
Nepal will take on hosts India on Monday evening for the gold medal in the regional sports gala. India had beaten Bangladesh 3-0 at the first semifinals at the same stadium earlier today.
Earlier, Nepal had played the finals of SAG football in 1984, 1993 and 1999. While Nepal were defeated by Bangladesh in 1999, they had earned gold medals in 1984 and 1993.

In January, Nepal had defeated the Maldives 4-1 in the semifinals of the Bangabandhu Gold Cup, in Dhaka of Bangladesh.
In the SAG group stage, Nepal had defeated Bhutan 5-0 while suffered a 2-1 loss from Bangladesh.
in today’s match, Nepal had made an early lead with Anjan Bista’s goal in the 15th minute. Nawayug Shrestha doubled the tally scoring in the 36th minute and making the Nepali side more confident.

Nepal that lead Maldives 2-0 in the first half, however, conceded first goal in the 52nd minute. The match was pushed to the extra-time after Ahmed Nashid levelled the score 2-2 in the 85th minute.
In the meantime, Nepal were restricted to 10 players after Kamal Shrestha was sent off the ground after he received second yellow card in the match.