After captaining India to an Below-19 World Cup title in 2012 — with arguably the best efficiency of his life — Unmukt Chand struggled to even watch his nation play on TV.
After donning the royal blue and molten orange jersey as a part of India A — the second rung of the nationwide crew ladder — Chand’s efficiency dipped and his title ultimately disappeared from the game-day roster for his dwelling state crew in Delhi
After donning the royal blue and molten orange jersey as a part of India’s A — or second-best — nationwide crew, Chand struggled and ultimately fell off the game-day roster for his dwelling state crew in Delhi.
After years gunning for India’s principal crew, Chand discovered himself circling the fringes. His early stardom by no means fairly translated right into a secure senior profession as alternatives dried up in a system overflowing with expertise. By 2021, the dream was nonetheless alive, however the runway had light and Chand determined to retire from all types of Indian cricket.
“To let go of that feeling was something which took me time, and obviously I had to do my own catharsis. I had self-identity doubts,” Chand stated.
Unmukt Chand revived his cricket profession when he moved to the USA and ultimately joined Main League Cricket’s L.A. Knight Riders.
(Andrew Hancock/For The Occasions)
With the braveness to start out over, he unloaded his luggage on American soil, the place the pitch was nonetheless being laid. What the U.S. lacked in custom, it made up for in potential, Chand stated — seeing a future in a spot that wasn’t sure by his previous.
“We’ve all grown up watching American sports and the way they do sports activities, and everything around it is something very exciting,” Chand stated, “and something very different from a cricketing point of view.”
Chand and his spouse, Simran Khosla, settled on relocating to Dallas. It was a leap made solely for cricket — one which left Khosla with out work, stability or something resembling certainty.
In 2019, American Cricket Enterprises, the strategic accomplice of USA Cricket, pledged a $1-billion funding to jumpstart an expert T20 league within the nation. T20 is a condensed, fast-paced format of the sport.
That imaginative and prescient materialized in 2023 with the debut of Main League Cricket, that includes six privately owned franchises every backed by international traders, together with a few of cricket’s most iconic manufacturers. ESPNcricinfo reported that the league will develop to eight groups in 2027, with sights set on 10 by 2031.
The aim? Hook American to a flashier fashion of cricket that emphasizes fast scoring, frequent momentum swings and simply sufficient chaos to draw followers who couldn’t inform a wicket from a walk-off.
“MLC is exciting — that’s why it is attracting so many players — top players from around the world,” Chand stated. “The way they have done this competition is also very nice, the way teams are being made, the way the domestic and international representation is there.”
Whereas MLC’s launch was delayed to 2022 attributable to COVID-19, ACE had already been courting Chand because the form of marquee expertise who may lend legitimacy and hype to the U.S.’s cricketing scene.
L.A. Knight Riders batsman Unmukt Chand collects the ball throughout a Main League Cricket match in opposition to the Mumbai Indians New York on July 3 at Central Broward Regional Park in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
(Icon Sportswire / Icon Sportswire through Getty Photos)
He made his American debut in August 2021 with the Silicon Valley Strikers in Minor League Cricket, a developmental league geared toward rising the game throughout the U.S.
“We were his biggest fans,” stated Natwar Agarwal, proprietor of the Strikers. “We always heard about him, and it was like a dream come true — Unmukt Chand is here, and there’s a possibility that he can play for our team.”
You probably wouldn’t have guessed that he’d simply crossed almost 8,000 miles or buried a dream that formed his boyhood. Chand paced the league in runs per sport, piling up 612 runs throughout 16 innings as he piloted his crew to the inaugural Minor League Cricket title.
“Players like him, … showed that a good quality of cricket can happen in the U.S.,” Agarwal stated. “Still today, I get calls from players in India, Pakistan — they want to explore the opportunity where they can come here and play.”
Chand’s championship summer season opened doorways all over the world — together with Australia and Bangladesh — however none felt fairly like dwelling till 2023, when he signed with Main League Cricket’s Los Angeles Knight Riders, the American arm of one among cricket’s most storied franchises.
The group, owned by Bollywood icon Shah Rukh Khan, introduced a built-in worldwide fan base and advertising and marketing muscle hardly ever seen in American cricket.
For Chand, it was the break he’d been denied again dwelling: a crew that backed him, and a league that permit him show he nonetheless belonged on the high.
“Playing for a franchise like Knight Riders is something very special, and being in L.A. makes it big,” Chand stated. “L.A. holds a very special place — it’s been a sporting capital with obviously the Lakers, and us now being a part of the same sporting ecosystem.”
He joined the Knight Riders as a top-order batsman in a locker room stocked with worldwide firepower and helmed by Dwayne Bravo, a West Indies legend within the T20 format.
Chand made good on it.
Unmukt Chand, of the L.A. Knight Riders, is working to earn a spot on the U.S. nationwide cricket crew.
(Andrew Hancock/For The Occasions)
“He’s been doing really well for us over the years — he was a really great addition to our Knight Riders team,” stated Ali Khan, Chand’s teammate and a member of the U.S. nationwide crew. “Always helpful and engaged in the field, and off the field as well, he’s always there and helping the team.”
The Knight Riders languished on the backside of the desk in 2025, the place they’d the previous two seasons. However Chand’s 33.6 run common this yr provided a uncommon glint in an in any other case uninteresting stretch.
He produced an unbeaten 86 runs off 58 balls to elevate his crew to one among its two victories this season, prompting Bravo to publicly endorse his star batsman for the U.S. nationwide crew.
“This guy deserves to be involved in USA cricket team! Cricket is bigger than politics, let’s do right for these players. Well done!” Bravo wrote on an Instagram story.
And but, for Chand, a U.S. call-up stays elusive.
He was overlooked of the 2024 T20 World Cup roster and handed over for a number of excursions overseas. Whereas Chand’s home performances have been strong, selectors have stated he has but to shift the choice calculus in a system which may prioritize youthful prospects.
“With the USA World Cup not happening for him, it was a little disappointing for us. Not little — very, because this is what we moved here for,” Khosla stated. “But he was at it even when things were not working for him — focusing on the process, going back to the basics, working hard, practicing more.”
Although the shortage of choice nonetheless stings, it’s not unfamiliar for Chand.
Adversity gave him a mindset he nonetheless leans on. The U.S. snubs haven’t shaken him — his focus, he says, stays to “perform wherever I can, make the best use of my opportunities and hopefully those things will happen sooner than later.”
Khosla, who met Chand throughout what she known as his “most struggling phase,” stated his drive by no means light — even when issues felt bleak.
What stored him going? His love for the sport.
“Cricket is his religion,” Khosla stated. “Cricket is something I would call his first wife. … If you take out his blood, his blood would be cricket.”
Chand, 32, speaks ambitiously about the way forward for American cricket — and his want to be on the middle of its growth. The indicators are there, he stated: the expansion of Main League Cricket, the inflow of youth academies, the development of stadiums and the promise of the game being featured through the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
He got here to the U.S. chasing a reimagined model of a childhood dream. He didn’t must rediscover the sport — simply wanted a brand new place to maintain feeding the hearth. His journey is chronicled in a documentary that was not too long ago chosen for screening by the Dallas Worldwide Movie Pageant.
“U.S. is my new home, and I’m going to be here only,” Chand stated. “Playing for USA, playing MLC, playing other franchises around the world is the way to go forward. And cricket has definitely been on the rise. … I look forward to the next few years in USA. It’s going to be exciting.”
