Right-arm-leg Spinner of Nepalese cricket team Sandeep Lamichhane is a well-known name for cricket fans and non-cricket fans. Cricket fans definitely know him for his charismatic bowling and skills. He gained popularity after being selected for international tournaments like the Indian Premier League (IPL), Big Bash League, and Pakistani Super League. He played for Delhi Capitals, Hobart Hurricanes, Lahore Qualandars respectively in the leagues. and have the history of playing the most lucrative international leagues. No other player had achieved this to date.

He debuted in list A on April 16, 2016, against Namibia in WCL League. His noticeable early match includes the under 19 world cup where he was Nepal’s key player and wicket-taker claiming 14 wickets in six games. He was discovered and instantly picked by the former national coach of Nepal Pubudu Dassanayake during the pit stop in Chitwan. From there he was taken for national camp for U-19. He made his national debut in 2018.

Michael Clark, former captain of the Australian Cricket team saw the spark in this little boy and helped him sharpen his skills. He sponsored the trip of Sandeep to Australia and invited him to play Sydney grade cricket. Clark helped him improve his skills and nurtured his passion for cricket.

From being taken to the national camp for the under-19 world cup by Dassanayake there is no looking backward in his career from his side. However, there have been many difficulties in his path because of the government of Nepal and its incompetence. He had shared many incidents on his social media accounts about how the corrupt system has let him down many times.

Recently, he had the opportunity to play ‘The hundred’ a new 100 ball format game purposed by the English and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). He was set to play for The Oval Invisibles in the game. However, the luck has yet another time left him after losing the opportunity at Vitality T-20 Blast. He lost the contract to play for Worcestershire, due to delays in the visa processes. This led Worcestershire to cancel the contract signing Ish Sodhi, as a replacement; he is a New Zealand legspinner.

ECB has now ruled out Sandeep of the hundred tournaments and has asked to leave the country showing the visa is illegal. Sandeep has now seeked clear answers from ECB as he has fulfilled all the necessary quarantine procedures prescribed by the UK government on the government-managed quarantine facility.

He is seeking answers so as to what and where things went wrong and apparently no one has a satisfactory answer to that. He was one of the beneficiaries of the changes made by ECB’s minimum requirements Government Body Endorsement (GBE).

Initially, the requirement was that a player had to be from the ICC Full member nation in at least one test or at least 15 limited-overs internationals in the past 24 months. Due to the lobby of ECB to include freelance T20 players, the time frame was set to 36 months and added a category that players of any nationality who has appeared for at least 20 ‘list A’ T20 matches. And Sandeep was fortunate enough to meet the criterion. But was very unfortunate to be ruled out after the visa issues.