Sandeep Lamichhane climbs every mountain to make the BBL grade

Melbourne Stars will field a legspinner in the Big Bash League who is the most unlikeliest of cricketers.

Melbourne Stars bowler Sandeep Lamichhane: ‘My dream is to play Big Bash. Cricket is like oxygen to me. Without it, I can’t live’. Picture: Mark Stewart

He’s come from nowhere. Come from the clouds.

Rolling his arm over with a battered tennis ball in the Nepalese district of Chitwan in 2015, Sandeep Lamichhane falls to his knees when the ground beneath his feet no longer provides a reliable base.

His country is being savaged by an earthquake that will kill more than 8000 people and injure nearly 22,000. Towns and homes and lives are being obliterated. When the 7.8-magnitude quake stops ripping his country to shreds, he picks up his ball and goes back to the top of his run-up. Because legspin requires repetition. An ability to ignore distractions. The willingness to flick the wrist through hell or high water.

“I was safe because I was at the cricket field in my home town,” Lamichhane tells The Weekend Australian. “It was a disaster. If I was at home, it could have been a different story. But I was practising on the field when the earthquake came. It was sudden. I was so shocked I fell down on my knees. I hope it will never come again to any part of the world.”

Next week the 18-year-old will make his debut for the Melbourne Stars in the Big Bash League after a rather compelling and wholly unlikely journey.

Born in the remote mountainside area of Syangja — an elevation of 2000 metres, up in the clouds — he’s moved to India as a young man so his father can work on the railways. That’s where he’s first watched a bit of cricket. Sachin Tendulkar’s batting, Shane Warne’s bowling. His family has returned to Nepal, to Chitwan, shortly before his country’s debut at the T20 World Cup in 2014.

He’s started watching videos of Warne on his phone. He’s flicked his wrist with uncanny success. A six-stitcher has proved easier to rip than a tennis ball. When the coach of Nepal’s under-19 team has passed through Chitwan for a wedding, he’s been told about the kid. He’s demanded a quick net session. And picked him for the team on the spot.

Lamichhane has progressed at such a giddy rate that he’s less than a week away from bowling, if selected in the final XI, to top-shelf players such as England Test captain Joe Root and Australia’s ex-allrounder Shane Watson.

“I am in the middle of my dream,” he says.

The Brisbane Heat host the Adelaide Strikers in the BBL opener at the Gabba on Wednesday night. Lamichhane’s Stars begin their campaign against the Sydney Thunder at Canberra’s Manuka Oval on Friday night.

The Thunder resemble little England with Root joined by England teammates Jos Buttler and later in the season Chris Jordan. All eight teams have a sprinkling of international players. The Afghan trio of Rashid Khan (Strikers), Mujeeb Ur Rahman (Heat) and Mohammad Nabi (Melbourne Renegades) are indicative of the expanding origins of the world’s cricketers but Lamich­hane is the biggest bolt from the blue. His new home ground is the MCG. He’s open-mouthed at the sight of it.

“I’m very proud,” he says. “I really am excited about it. I have always been trying to get into the BBL.

“It’s a beautiful league and it’s been amazing news to be accepted by the Melbourne Stars. The MCG, I think it will be big enough to house myself and the team. When I walked in there for the first time, I will admit I was proud of myself.

“I’ve done a lot of hard work. It’s not easy to come from a country like Nepal and try to prove yourself as a cricketer. To be the first from Nepal in the BBL, it is an honour I hold highly.

“We have a country of beautiful people, hardworking people. And we have begun to love this sport of cricket. I want to make them proud. I’m feeling really great about it. I want to be the example. If I can do this, a lot of people can.

“Sport is an incredible thing that can let you achieve these dreams. All I ever did was play with my friends with a tennis ball. But I had a passion to improve and go further and play cricket as a professional.”

GRAPHIC: Big Bash League teams

Three original theories about T20 have been turned on their heads since Australia and New Zealand players wore wigs, fake moustaches and 1980s-vintage uniforms for the first real unveiling of the abbreviated format in 2005.

Theory No 1 — the whole thing was a joke. That has been disproved by the flood of domestic leagues around the globe.

Theory No 2 — it would be the death of Test cricket. Not so. It’s only highlighted the deep-and-meaningful substance of five-day matches. The fast-food joint of T20 can exist alongside the fine eatery of Tests without competing against it.

Theory No 3 — spinners would be hit to kingdom come. The top six on the T20 world bowling rankings are all wrist spinners. Remarkable, to the point of being unfathomable.

Michael Clarke with Lamichhane sat a grade cricket match in Sydney in 2016. Picture: Getty Images

Lamichhane played with Michael Clarke for the good old Kowloon Cantons at the Hong Kong T20 tournament in 2016.

That was when he first said: “My dream is to play Big Bash. Cricket is like oxygen to me. Without it, I can’t live.”

He’s already taken a hat-trick at the Under-19 World Cup and been the tournament’s second-highest wicket-taker.

Clarke cared enough to organise for Lamichhane to spend a season with Western Suburbs in Sydney grade cricket.

After his debut, Clarke said: “Sandeep has a lot of talent. But he offers a hell of a lot more than that and that’s why I’ve done whatever I could to get him to Sydney. He’s a lovely young man. He’s extremely respectful. He loves the game as much as anyone I’ve ever seen.”

Ricky Ponting’s Delhi Daredevils picked Lamichhane as a 17-year-old for the Indian Premier League after a tense trial net session in which he, and only he, was the bowler. He’s especially grateful to Clarke.

“I never had a cricket academy in Nepal,” Lamichhane says. “I used to watch Shane Warne on my mobile, watching his videos. He’s fantastic. I played in the same team as Michael Clarke in Hong Kong. I bowled well there and he called me to Sydney for grade cricket.

“He said he would teach me everything he could as a teacher. He has been an incredible figure to me. I did a little bit of bowling to him in the nets. He’s a very great player of spin. I’m pretty sure he must be very much proud of me now.”