Sompal Kami’s 62* and 4 Wickets Take Karnali Top in NPL 2026

Captains are supposed to lead with one discipline and manage the other. Sompal Kami led Karnali Yaks with both on Thursday night at Kirtipur, hitting an unbeaten 62 off 32 balls and taking four wickets for 33 runs as the Yaks beat Biratnagar Kings by four wickets with one ball left in NPL Season 3 Match 6. Karnali went to four points and sole possession of first place, and their captain, retained for a third consecutive season as the franchise’s marquee player, walked off as Player of the Match with the season’s defining all-round performance so far.

The night he did it all

Biratnagar had set 186 for 7, built on Lokesh Bam’s 87 off 52 balls, and Karnali’s chase had fallen apart at 57 for 5. Kami walked in with the match slipping away and rebuilt it twice over: first in a 66-run sixth-wicket stand, then in an unbroken 64-run seventh-wicket stand with Gulshan Jha, who finished unbeaten on 28 off 21 balls.

Eight runs were needed off the final over, bowled by Sandeep Lamichhane. Kami and Gulshan took one, two and one off the first three balls, then a dropped catch and an extra run off a fielding mistake left the equation at two off two — and Kami finished it with two runs, then two more, to win with one ball left. His four wickets for 33 runs had earlier kept Biratnagar’s total within reach, and the unbeaten 62 completed the finest all-round match of the season so far.

From Gulmi to the first ODI

Kami’s career is the story of Nepal’s rise in miniature. Born on 2 February 1996 in Chandrakot, Gulmi, he made his T20 international debut against Hong Kong on 16 March 2014, in Nepal’s first World T20 campaign in Bangladesh. Four years later he was one of the eleven players in Nepal’s first-ever one-day international, against the Netherlands on 1 August 2018.

January 2019 gave him his landmark: five wickets for 33 runs against the United Arab Emirates, making him the first bowler from Nepal to take a five-wicket haul in an ODI. More than 150 international wickets have followed across the two white-ball formats, built on swing and seam rather than express pace. With the new ball he attacks the stumps early, moves the ball both ways, and sets batters up with the away-swinger to draw the edge and the nip-backer at the pads.

Three seasons as Karnali’s face

Retained by Karnali for a third consecutive season as captain and marquee player, Kami leads an attack that now features two Nepal internationals with the new ball, opening the bowling alongside Nandan Yadav. Head coach Gyanendra Malla, himself a former Nepal captain, gives him a varied attack to manage: Mark Watt’s left-arm overs, Yuvraj Khatri’s wrist-spin, and a domestic left-arm contest between Bipin Sharma and Surya Tamang.

Season 3 has started the way a captain would want it. Karnali defended 132 for 9 against Janakpur in Match 3, winning by 19 runs, then chased 187 against Biratnagar in Match 6. Two wins from two matches, four points, and a net run rate of plus 0.533 have the Yaks alone at the top — and their next match is against Kathmandu on Monday, 2 November, at 12:30 PM NST.

The captain’s word

After Match 6, Kami spoke about the partnership that won the game. He and Gulshan have been roommates for five years, and he said he stayed confident with 17 or 18 needed in the final six overs. Gulshan, in his captain’s words, is one of Nepal’s best T20 players — and on Thursday night, with the chase collapsing around them, the two roommates proved it together.