Unmukt Chand is on his way back to the IPL after 9 years. The captain who led India to an Under-19 World Cup victory has made it to the final list of the IPL auction.
However, the country listed beside his name in that list is not India. Chand’s country is now the United States, meaning he has entered his home country’s tournament as a representative of the USA.
Chand made his IPL debut at the age of just 18, playing his first match in 2011. His last appearance in the league was in 2016, representing the Mumbai Indians. In his final IPL innings, he scored a duck.
Overall, the right-handed batter played 20 IPL innings, scoring just 300 runs with a strike rate of 100. The fame Chand earned after winning the Under-19 World Cup for India faded significantly, and the IPL played a big part in that decline. It all started with him being bowled by Brett Lee on the very first ball of the 2013 IPL—a moment that continues to resurface on the internet, etched in cricket fans’ memories.
At one point, Chand was even compared to Virat Kohli, and the reasons were clear. Both grew up in Delhi and both captained India to Under-19 World Cup victories.
Kohli emerged under the spotlight in the 2008 Under-19 World Cup, while Chand rose to fame in the 2012 edition. After that, Kohli became one of India’s all-time greats, while Chand never even got a chance to play for India. He retired from Indian cricket in 2020, at the young age of just 28, after failing to secure opportunities.
Even after stepping into American cricket, the journey hasn’t been smooth for Chand. He failed to make the USA squad for the last T20 World Cup on home soil, a disappointment he later spoke openly about. Chand hasn’t found a place in the USA national team even after the World Cup.
However, he has been a regular in Major League Cricket. In the most recent season, he scored 158 runs in six matches for the Los Angeles Knight Riders, including two fifties. Most recently, he participated in the Max60 tournament in the West Indies.
