San Francisco [US]: Unmukt Chand, India’s 2012 Under-19 World Cup-winning captain, has said that playing in the Indian Premier League (IPL) was a massive experience for him, but he was not lucky during his stint in the cash-rich league.
The right-handed batsman has signed for the Silicon Valley Strikers side for the 2021 season of Minor League Cricket (MLC) in the United States. Unmukt, who retired as an Indian cricketer at the age of 28 on Friday, has featured in the Indian Premier League (IPL) and scored more than 4,500 runs in List A cricket. “Playing the IPL was a massive experience for me, but I wasn’t very lucky during my stint in it. I too dreamt of playing for India one day. I did realise some of those dreams with my time at India U-19 and India A. I have been abroad for the past two months, but it doesn’t feel too different from home. I am playing with and against new people,” ESPNcricinfo quoted Unmukt as saying.
“There are plenty of Indians in the cricket system here, and the game is being taken quite seriously. Just the shade of blue is not the one I had initially dreamt of,” he added.
Talking about his decision to go to the USA, Unmukt said: “These last few years have been tough. But I wasn’t going to give up on cricket completely. If I wasn’t getting enough opportunities to play in India, where were the next four or five crucial years of my career going to go? I still get emotional imagining that I will never get to play for India again. But I have made some special memories while playing in India.”
Unmukt will make his debut for the Strikers against the Socal Lashings this Saturday at Morgan Hill Outdoor Sports Complex in Morgan Hill, CA in a Minor League Cricket Championship. The 28-year-old cricketer has relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area and signed a multi-year agreement with Major League Cricket to support the development of the game in the United States by playing with and mentoring the next generation of American cricketers.
