Former India U-19 World Cup winning captain Unmukt Chand has opened up on his absence from USA’s squad for the recently-concluded T20 World Cup. Chand took retirement from Indian cricket in 2021 before shifting base to the USA for better cricketing opportunities. After playing in the inaugural edition of the Major League Cricket (MLC), as well as other franchise tournaments, Chand became eligible to play for the USA. He had also expressed his wish of playing against India in the T20 World Cup, only to be left out of the squad.

Chand revealed that he was shocked after being left out of T20 World Cup squad, added that he had a feeling of being “sucked inside”.

“That wasn’t an ideal situation to be in. Because personally for me, this was what I had dreamed for the last three years. Obviously, it was a big shock. And it took me time to sort of come to terms with it. It’s never easy as a player, having lost all those things back home in India, to having this one goal, which had kept me going for the last three years not happening. So it is difficult. I won’t say which just happened. But it was difficult. I was not my best self for some time,” Chand told Cricbuzz.

Chand also spoke about his inner demons and said that it took a lot of ups and downs to overcome that feeling.

“That was a very internal battle and it’s a sucker basically. It keeps sucking you inside and inside. That feeling would linger on for a day and then go away and then come back again. The reality would hit me in different phases. Once you keep going through that automatically you keep getting better. There comes a time when you’re like it didn’t happen, that’s it. I’m not even thinking about it,” he added.

Chand, 31, has a point to prove, and started off the second season of Major League Cricket (MLC) – USA’s franchise T20 league – with a swashbuckling half-century.

Interestingly, Chand’s present MLC franchise is Los Angeles Knight Riders (LAKR), who are owned by the Knight Riders group. Many might remember that Chand’s downfall started when he was famously clean bowled by Kolkata Knight Riders pacer Brett Lee in the opening ball of IPL 2013. He made 68 off 45 balls, hitting six 4s and three 6s.