Sandeep Lamichhane’s hopes of playing in the T20 World Cup have been dashed as his US visa application gets denied for the second time, despite efforts from Nepal’s government and Cricket Association of Nepal.
Nepalese leg-spinner Sandeep Lamichhane will miss the T20 World Cup after his visa application to the United States was denied for a second time. Initially, his visa application was refused by the US Embassy in Kathmandu last week. Despite intervention efforts from Nepal’s government and the Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN), the US Embassy expressed its inability to grant Lamichhane travel permission.
Lamichhane, 23, had been waiting for the visa decision while training in Kathmandu. He was convicted of raping an 18-year-old woman in December 2023, but this conviction was recently overturned. This is not the first time he has faced visa issues; his US visa application was also rejected in 2019 when he was set to participate in the Caribbean Premier League. Nepal’s T20 World Cup campaign begins with a match against the Netherlands in Dallas on June 4.
