Spinner Bhuwan Karki will get a chance to train with Indian Premier League (IPL) side Rajasthan Royals for a month, unless and until any unruly happens.
Nepali national team coach Pubudu Dassanayake has arranged thre training program for Karki with the IPL side owned by Bollywood beauty Shilpa Shetty.
Dassanayake made the training arrangement using his personal relation with the Rajasthan Royals Coach Monty Desai. Dassanayake, who was the coach of Canada from 2007 to 2011, has a good relation with Desai, who was the consultant coach of the Canada team during World T20 Qualifiers held in the UAE last year.
Desai had called Nepali all-rounder Shakti Gauchan to Rajasthan for trial last year after watching latter’s performances in the qualifiers.
Rajasthan Royals is to start its training camp in Jaipur from March 22. According to Dassanayake, spinner Karki will reach Jaipur by the third week of March and stay there for a month. The sixth edition of the IPL is to begin from April 3. Rajasthan is to take on Delhi Daredevils on April 6 in its first match of the season.
“All the senior players will be busy in the preparation for the ICC World Cricket League Dvision 3 to be held in Bermuda. Thus, I recommended Bhuwan (Karki) for the training,” said Dassanayake. “He is key bowler of the U-19 team and he is setting up very well. I hope, it would be a good exposure for Bhuwan,” he added.
Dassanayake said that training with the team is the maximum achievement for the time being since securing berths in the team through foreign quota is too difficult for Nepali cricketers.
Dassanayake had informed Karki about the training arrangement on Thursday. “I was surprised to hear about the training arrangement from the coach. It is an opportunity for me to learn cricket at the top level,” said Karki.
Indian cricket great Rahul Dravid and contemporary world class cricketers like Shane Watson, Brad Hodge and Ajinkya Rahane are in the Rajasthan Royals team. “I want to be spotted by these cricketers. However, I have no particular plans on how to bowl them,” said 19-year old Karki, who hails from Dhangadhi.
Karki, who is going through official procedure of joining Armed Police Force, has already played for the senior and age group national squads. He had played in the ACC U-15 Elite Cup in 2007 in Kathmandu as his first international tournament. Karki, who played in the ACC U-19, U-19 World Cup Qualifiers, ACC U-19 Asia Cup and U-19 World Cup in the last three years, claimed 33 wickets from 24 matches at the international level. In his U-19 international career, he had bowled 37 maiden overs and is considered as one of the economic Nepali bowlers.
Karki had debuted in the national squad from the ACC Trophy Elite held in the UAE five months ago.
“I have an image of economic bowler. I enjoy bowling dot balls. I’ll try to repeat same in Rajasthan,” said Karki.
Gauchan, who had trained with Rajasthan last year, said that the training will help Karki individually and Nepali cricket eventually. “It was awesome experience for me to train with Rajasthan. I learnt how to bowl to the players with great caliber. The training gave me a huge morale boost,” said Gauchan. “Bhuwan (Karki) has a chance of training for one month, which is much more than one-week experience of mine. I hope it would be a great experience for young player like Bhuwan (Karki),” he added.