India’s former U-19 World Cup-winning skipper, Unmukt Chand has now decided to play in the foreign leagues and announced his retirement from Indian cricket. He led the junior team to win the coveted trophy way back in 2012. Unmukt Chand has retired from Indian cricket. Former India U-19 World Cup-winning captain Unmukt Chand made the announcement of his retirement on Friday.
Unmukt Chand will be joining his former U19 teammates- Smit Patel and Harmeet Singh- in playing in the USA. Back in 2012, he played a brilliant knock of unbeaten 111 in the final of the U19 World Cup against Australia in Townsville. However, his career never took off after that.
Apart from taking his team through to glory, Unmukt Chand also got the privilege of featuring in a commercial along with MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina. The PEPSI advertisement came out after Chand’s heroics in the WC in Australia.
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After winning the WC, Unmukt Chand led India’s A team as well for a couple of years but lost his place in 2016. Even for Delhi, he failed to perform consistently and eventually decided to move to Uttarakhand. For the 2020-21 season, he moved back to Delhi only to warm the benches.
On his decision to move to the USA, Chand said that it was a ‘painful call’, but he also talked about turning his career around after a tough phase.
During a chat on Cricbu, Chand said, “It’s a tough one for someone like me, who has always dreamed of playing for the country. And most of it very emotional one as well and obviously, having played every other cricket, except for the senior team, I think it was a very painful cal.”
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“But then the last few years have not been very kind to me in terms of facing a lot of association politics among other things. I’ve not been able to play a lot of cricket because of such things and that is why I arrived at this decision, to play some good cricket here in the US. I’d finally like to thank the BCCI for their support over the years in making me the cricketer I am today,” he added.
