NAIROBI, Kenya Aug 31- Nepalese star Sandeep Lamichhane, who made history as the first player in his country to feature for the Indian Premier League (IPL), revealed to Capital Sports that he had developed a personal interest in cricket having no family member to look up to.
The 22-year-old cricketer, who has played for Twenty20 franchise sides across the world, said he grew interest of playing the game when he was young thanks to attending many cricket games.
“I introduced myself to cricket, I have always enjoyed watching the players on the field and it was something that inspired me as a young kid, and with that I had always wanted to step into the field as an athlete,” said Lamichhane, whose role models in his childhood was Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne.
The Nepalese national cricket captain is the last born out of three children, being raised along his two elder siblings Mohan Lamichhane and Indu Lamichhane Neupane.
Lamichhane’s best moment in cricket is when he watched Nepal play in the World Cup in 2014 despite him not being part of it.
“I have quite a few good moments, but my best was watching live Nepal play in the World Cup 2014, even though I was not part of it but it was a moment for all of us, and personally it was an indescribable time for Nepal,” Lamichhane’s, who is Nepal’s all time highest wicket taker in both ODI and T20I described.
He was first spotted by the talent scouts when he played in for Delhi during the annual Hong Kong T20 sixes back in 2017 who beckoned him for trial and clearly, he was able to qualify.
From then on, he was able to gain exposure and play for the big leagues and grow in his career.
He has turned out for Twenty20 franchise sides across the world including the Delhi Capitals in the Indian Premier League (IPL), the Hobart Hurricanes in the Big Bash League (BBL) and the Lahore Qalandars in the Pakistan Super League (PSL).
And as the captain he hopes to have a positive impact on his teammates by the time his tenure ends.
“Being a captain is a big responsibility for me in terms of helping and sharing my knowledge, as it is all about helping each other and improving as a team in the end,” the skipper, who made his Twenty20 International debut against the West Indies, told Capital Sport after guiding his charges to a win against Kenya in the T20 International Cricket five-match Series.
-First time in Kenya-
This being his first time to visit Kenya he was content with his stay in the country and was glad to be part of the team that brought cricket back to the Kenyans for the first time in a decade, noting that the players’ performance in the field was impressive.
“Experience here has been fantastic, and the most important thing is bringing cricket back to Kenya and the talent is immense, the future is bright for Kenya. It was amazing for me, personally coming down and playing in a beautiful country with amazing culture.”
A skillful bowler beyond his years with striking talent in cricket, Lamichhane is also singer and a guitarist and in July 2018, he released his first song ‘Udash thiyo’ from the album Pratikshya-The Waiting.
As he guides his charges in the impressive outing at the ODI match, where they have so far won two out of three matches, he is confident that his team will succeed.
“Definitely we have to win the ODI, I am just preparing myself ahead of the game and hopefully we will manage to win.”
