National cricket team opening batsman Kushal Bhurtel is among the very few Nepali players to make a steady rise in his career. The 25-year-old, who marked his debut for the national team last year, is currently inside the top 30 rankings in the list of T20 batters.

Recognising his sensational performance with bat, Bhurtel has been nominated for the peoples' choice category of the annual Pulsar Sports Award. Along with Bhurtel, national women's football team goalkeeper Anjila Tumbapo Subba, shuttler Prince Dahal, middle distance runner Santoshi Shrestha and table tennis player Elina Maharjan are other nominees for the people’s choice category.

The winners among them will be decided on the basis of eSewa votes, Facebook Likes on the official page of the Sports Award and points allocated by head coaches of 27 sports associations affiliated with the Nepal Olympic Committee and members of NSJF. The eSewa votes will have 50 percent weightage, Facebook Likes 25 percent and the points allocated by coaches and NSJF members will have 12.5 percent weightage each.

It has been less than 12 months that Bhurtel has made foray into the national team, but he has already established himself as a key member of the squad. Though he was included in the national team for the 13th South Asian Games in December 2019, he failed to secure a place in the starting list.

But he finally appeared in the national fold during the T20I Triangular Series at the TU grounds involving the hosts, Malaysia and the Netherlands. And after 11 months, he is in the 29th position in the T20I batting rankings – a feat which his predecessors had never achieved.

Bhurtel cracked three successive half centuries in his first three games. In his debut match, Bhurtel scored 63 runs against the Netherlands. He then hit an unbeaten 62 runs against Malaysia before contributing 62 runs against the Dutch in the second leg. He also went on to become the first and the only cricketer to score triple T20I fifties in his first three debut matches. In the final against the Netherlands, he played a crucial knock of 77 runs to help the home team lift the trophy.

Since then he has never looked back.

Impressed with his performance, the global cricket governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), nominated Bhurtel as ICC Player of the Month for April 2021 along with Pakistan’s Babar Azam and Fakhar Zaman. It was also the first occasion that any Nepali player was nominated in the category. Following his inclusion, national captain Sandeep Lamichhane and allrounder Dipendra Singh Airee have been nominated for the same award.

Bhurtel has scored a century and five half centuries in the 11 Twenty20 International matches he has played. He also became the third Nepali player to hit a T20I century after he struck an unbeaten 104 runs against the Philippines in the World T20 Global Qualifiers played last month. He has amassed 498 T20I runs and is only behind former captains Paras Khadka, Gyanendra Malla and Dipendra Singh Airee in the list of all-time T20I highest scorers in Nepal.

The batter is also on the way to gaining heights in the One-Day format. He marked his ODI debut in September last year and scored 84 runs against the United States in the Oman Series of the ICC World Cup League Two match.

Bhurtel’s exploits with bat and fearless approach have given a big respite to the Nepali team that has been struggling with bat for long. He is currently on the Sri Lanka tour with the national team to fine tune their preparations for the ICC Cricket World Cup League 2 series involving the hosts United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Papua New Guinea. The Series will take place from March 15 to 22.