Kushal Bhurtel

An opening batter who packs a punch, a more-than-useful legspinner and a gun fielder, Kushal Bhurtel is one of Nepal's rising stars in the post-Paras Khadka-era.

Bhurtel was the fourth Nepal batter to record an ODI century and could have become the first from the country with multiple centuries in the format, but he fell for 99 against Zimbabwe in the 2023 ODI World Cup Qualifier.

He played in the 2016 Under-19 World Cup, where Nepal reached the quarter-finals, and went on to make a headline-grabbing international debut in 2021, scoring four half-centuries in his first five T20Is. Early next year he recorded his first hundred in the format, an unbeaten 104 off 61 balls against Philippines, becoming only the third Nepal batter to score a T20I hundred.

He made his ODI debut a few months after his T20I one and scored a match-winning 84 against USA in his third game.

He was a vital part of the Nepal side that played the 2023 ODI World Cup Qualifier, scoring over 200 runs in six games, and the 2024 T20 World Cup, where he didn't do much with the bat. While Bhurtel makes the side on the strength of his batting alone, in recent times, he has bowled more, with decent returns. In a T20 World Cup game, he gave South Africa a scare with figures of 4 for 19.

He has played the Nepal Premier League but is yet to participate in any franchise cricket outside of his country.