Unmukt Chand, the former captain of India’s under-19 cricket team who brought the World Cup trophy home in 2012, might play against India in the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup 2024. He said it would “be strange” to clash with India as he would be eligible to play for the United States in the marquee tournament, scheduled in June. 

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The USA is in the same group as India and Pakistan in the T20 World Cup 2024. India and the USA will clash in the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 league match on 12 June in New York. 

Chand retired from all forms of cricket in India in September 2021. He has almost fulfilled the eligibility criteria of staying in the USA for 10 months in a year for three years. 

In a recent interview with Cricbuzz, Unmukt Chand said, “It is something which would be very strange (laughs), but I think since I’ve retired from India, my next goal was always to sort of play against India, and not in any bad blood but keen to test myself out against the best team in the world.”

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In the early 2010s, Unmukt Chand was one of the most exciting prospects in India. However, he couldn’t live up to the sky-high expectations after scoring a match-winning century in the under-19 World Cup finals. 

Unmukt Chand transferred allegiance from Delhi to Uttarakhand due to underwhelming returns in the domestic circuit. In 2021, he moved to the USA and played for the Silicon Valley Strikers. He has scored over 1,500 runs across three seasons in the first Minor League Cricket. 

If Chand gets selected to play for the United States, he might lock horns with players who were once his team mates like Jasprit Bumrah and Suryakumar Yadav. 

Two more players, Smit Patel and Harmeet Singh, from the under-19 World Cup 2012, have qualified to play for the United States in the T20 World Cup 2024. Patel, a wicketkeeper and batter, has played cricket for Gujarat, Tripura, and Vadodara in India. He moved to the USA in 2020. 

Patel fondly remembers playing with Jasprit Bumrah. “I have spent a lot of time with Jassi over the years. Still remember the day he rocked up to practice for the first time and left us awestruck with what we were witnessing,” Smit told Cricbuzz. “The team had a name for him those days. We used to call him Jasprit Gumrah.”

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