The historic day for Nepal Cricket has finally arrived as 17-year old Sandeep Lamichhane looks set to make his debut for Delhi Daredevils against Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2018 VIVO IPL.
Will there be debuts tonight? 🤔#DilDilli #Dhadkega #DDvRCB pic.twitter.com/QVcJ4Gf71z
— Delhi Capitals (@DelhiCapitals) May 12, 2018
After Delhi’s bowling coach James Hopes mentioned that they will look to give opportunities to players who have not been tried out yet in their games so far in the season including South Africa’s Junior Dala and Nepal’s Sandeep, the team twitter handle gave away another hint that Sandeep indeed might be making his debut at M. Chinnaswamy stadium on 12th May 2018.
Training done ✅
Matchday ready ✅#DilDilli #Dhadkega #DDvRCB pic.twitter.com/fXcgeUwk2Q— Delhi Capitals (@DelhiCapitals) May 12, 2018
If given the debut, it will be a historic moment for Nepal Cricket with Sandeep becoming the first ever player to play in a Global T20 league outside his country and will pave the way for more youngsters in the country to pick up cricket as a career.
Delhi haven’t had the best of the season so far, winning only three of their games out of 11 played so far and stand right at the bottom of the points table. Their opponents for tonight though, RCB, haven’t had the best of the season themselves, occupying the spot right above Delhi in the standings with 3 wins from 10 matches so far.
Sandeep has been doing great for Nepal in International cricket so far with notable performances in the ACC U-19 Asia Cup, ICC WCL Division 2 and ICC World Cup Qualifiers in the recent times. His selection didn’t come as a surprise as Delhi owner, Hemant Dua revealed that Sandeep had been under their radar since 2016 itself and prior to IPL Auctions held in Jan 2018, Sandeep flew in to New Delhi to have private net session for the franchise and Delhi’s head coach, Ricky Ponting was impressed with what he saw and recommended his name to the management to pick him for the 2018 edition of Indian Premier League.
