Sandeep Lamichhane's ban lifted, gets bail to play cricket

Sandeep Lamichhane captained Nepal against Nepal (Twitter)

Nepal's former captain and one of their brightest stars, Sandeep Lamichhane, has got his ban lifted by the Cricket Associaton of Nepal. The cricketer is going through court trials after facing rape allegations in September last year.

Last year, an arrest warrant was released against the Nepal International when he was in the Caribbean Islands representing Jamaica Tallawahs in the Caribbean Premier League.

After all the drama, the board banned Lamichhane, but now the ban has been lifted to allow him to play in the home Tri-Series against Namibia and Scotland, which would be part of Cricket World Cup League 2. 

However, the leg-spinner will be playing cricket on bail, and he had to pay a hefty penalty of USD 15300 (approximately INR 12.53 lakhs).  

While talking to ESPNcricinfo, CAN general manager, Britant Khanal, has said: "The decision to remove the suspension and allow Lamichhane to play in the tri-series was with the condition that he would 'respect the limitation prescribed' by the court that granted him bail in January this year." 

Meanwhile, if he has to travel out of the country to play cricket, it would depend on whether the court allows him or not. 

A similar sort of incident happened with India's Navjot Singh Sidhu back in the 1990s. 

For a case from 1988, the Indian opener was convicted in a murder case for which he had to take bail from the Punjab court to travel foreign. However, later he was sentenced to a one-year jail period in May, 2022.

Thus far in his international career of 5 years, the 22-year-old has played 74 international matches to garner over 150 wickets. He has a couple of milestones in his kitty, being the second-fastest to 50 ODI wickets and third to 50 in T20I cricket.

The Nepalese cricketer is also the lone man from his nation to have played in the Indian Premier League. He represented the Delhi franchise during the 2018 and 2019 editions of the tournament.

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