Unmukt Chand (TOI Photo)
NEW DELHI: Thirteen days shy of the ninth anniversary of leading India to a U-19 World Cup title, Unmukt Chand has announced his retirement from cricket in India. On Friday, the 28-year-old posted an emotional letter on Twitter saying he would be plying his trade around the world. He is currently in USA since April and is likely to play in the planned US T20 League.
His U-19 teammate Smit Patel too had announced his move to US earlier in the year. The unbeaten 111 against Australia U-19s in Townsville during the World Cup remains the highest point of the batsman’s career. The knock had catapulted him to being the face of Indian cricket’s future at a time when MS Dhoni’s team was going through transition. His journey until then mirrored Virat Kohli’s. In fact, the then chief national selector, Sandeep Patil was eager to give him the India cap.
Despite his almost sensational arrival on the domestic scene, Unmukt didn’t have a defining domestic or an IPL season post the World Cup glory. He remained on the fence and the much-awaited India call didn’t come.
Unmukt’s white-ball form, however, never dipped. He was even handed the captaincy for the India ‘A’ team that had established stars like Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh in it.
Unmukt was even elevated to Delhi’s captaincy. But things never took off with performances coming few and far between. And soon he was dropped from the Ranji Trophy team in the 2017-18 when Delhi made it to the final after 10 years.
His List A career also never took a dip. He remained one of the top scorers for Delhi but found himself on the wrong side of the politics in Delhi cricket. In 2017, Unmukt refused retention offered by Mumbai Indians and opted to go into the auction pool so that he could get more matches to play for any other IPL franchise. Unmukt was dropped from Delhi’s Vijay Hazare Trophy team on the eve of the auction and he went unsold. He was however brought back three games into the tournament.
Unmukt tried his luck by moving to Uttarakhand in 2019-20 but form deserted him there too. His career became a sad story of how things could go wrong after early success.
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