The 25 year-old Tanmay Mishra, Kenya’s dependable right-hand batsman, will become the first Kenyan to play in lucrative Indian Premier League Twenty20 Championship where he will turn up for Deccan Chargers of Hyderabad city.

The IPL will kick off on April 4 and Mishra is expected to make his debut when Deccan Chargers host Rajasthan Royals five days later.

A total of 74 matches are scheduled to be played in 54 days.

Mishra, who is currently in Mombasa with the national squad for the International Cricket Council Intercontinental Cup and the two Pepsi World Cricket League Championship and same number of Twenty20 games at the Mombasa Sports Club, on Wednesday confirmed that he has signed for Deccan Chargers but refused to discuss the matter further.

He said: “I do not what to talk about it now as I want to focus on the remaining matches against Ireland, let us talk when the team returns to Nairobi.”

Chargers’ Chief Operating officer, Venkat Reddy, later told the Daily Nation that they were impressed by Mishra’s game hence their decision to sign the player.

“We saw him playing in the Maharashtra team during our talent search and we were impressed, hence our decision to sign him,” Reddy said on telephone from India.

“Definitely Kenyan players have great potential to play in the IPL and Tanmay will definitely give the Kenyan game a major boost by playing for us.”

Commenting on the signing, Kenya’s skipper, Collins Obuya said: “Mishra broke the news of his recruitment to us on Monday.

“We are very happy for him as a team and expect him to learn new techniques in Twenty20, as he will play against professional players from all over the world.”

“If four or five more players could get such an opening, it will held to raise the standard of the team.”

After Mombasa, Kenya and Ireland will head to Dubai for the Global Twenty20 World Cup Qualifiers set to start on March 3, where 16 teams will fight for the two slots reserved for non Test playing countries in the Word Twenty20 championship set for Sri Lanka in September.

Mishra, an Indian national came to Kenya with his parents as a small boy and was one of the beneficiaries of the development programme ran by Cricket Kenya’s predecessors, Kenya Cricket Association.

He represented the country in the East African regional under-15 event which was organised by the ICC Development Programme run by Tom Tikolo, the then ICC development officer for East Africa.

He was part of Kenya’s squad trained by Roger Harper that qualified for the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup that took place in South Africa in 2007.

Mishra has taken part in 36 one day international matches, played 34 innings, scored 907 runs with a high of 72.

He has taken part in four Twenty20 matches and same number of innings, scoring 67 runs with a high of 36.

He shined with the bat when Kenya faced Australia in last year’s World Cup in Asia when he shared a fourth wicket partnership of 115 with Collins Obuya, who missed unbeaten century by two runs. Mishra hit half a century of 72 runs.

courtesy : rmwangi@ke.nationmedia.com