“I started playing cricket when I was about nine years old,” he says. He used to play cricket on the streets around his home with his friends and seniors. Due to their encouragement and praises, he got inspired to play the game early on.[break]
First of all, he joined the Yangal Club to practice the game. From there, he got selected in the U-15 squad from the Kathmandu District.
“Before I joined the U-15 club, I used to take cricket just as a game for my entertainment and diversion. But at the U-15 club, we had to run every morning for our fitness,” he says, recalling those days.
“I wasn’t very keen and was also discouraged to take up cricket as a profession then. I used to wonder what I was doing there.” But he finally made up his mind to play it.
As a result, Malla has played in fourteen international tournaments till date, winning six of them, including the U-19 World Cup finals, U-15 Asian Cricket Council (ACC) Trophy, U-19 ACC twice, and the ACC Premier League.
Malla was so inclined to the cricket that he dropped his studies when he was studying in grade 12 at the Public Youth Campus. “But now I think I should be resuming my studies as I’ve realized the importance of academic qualifications,” he says.
He has traveled around the world to play many matches, and has been able to make well-wishers in all the places he has been to.
“I’m glad I could go to those places as I learnt the cultures and habits of the people and developed my new horizons,” he says.
Malla, along with his friends, recently founded a cricket training centre named Kathmandu Cricket Training Centre, and has been training a new generation of cricketers in the country.
Collecting the experiences of some 10 years in professional cricket and four years in Nepal’s senior cricket team, Malla is sure that he is going to take cricket as his career.
“I’ll play as long as it’s possible. After that, I’ll spend the rest of my life as a cricket coach in my training institute,” he says, determinedly.
Well, nothing is going to stop him at the current rate of his excellence and purpose.
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