After being surprisingly benched for 9 matches, 22-year-old Mahipal Lomror finally got to make his debut for the Royal Challengers Bangalore in IPL 2022. He came on towards the end of RCB’s innings against Gujarat Titans and smacked 16 runs from 8 balls.
Four days later, he was up against a resurging Chennai Super Kings bowling attack. On a two-paced surface, on which the ball was “gripping and skidding” as well, Lomror, given a promotion to number 4 to take CSK’s spinners, thumped 42 runs off 27 balls, making a significant contribution to RCB’s eventual total of 173.
It was surprising that Lomror had been on the bench for more than half of the season despite having shown his talent last year for Rajasthan Royals when he plundered 43 runs off 17 balls vs Punjab Kings. Before moving to RCB, Lomror had been with RR from 2018 to 2021 and played a handful of matches in each of the four seasons. But, now, after two blistering knocks for RCB, he seems to have cemented his spot for at least the remaining league matches for Faf du Plessis’ side.
With that, we will take a look into the personal story of Mahipal Lomror and his inspirational journey to the biggest T20 league in the world. He was gifted his first bat when he was by his grandfather Ummed Singh. His father Krishna Kumar is posted as a supervisor in Lomrod RSBCL Jaipur and he has two sisters.
Mahipal Lomror was born in November 1999 in the Nagaur district of Rajasthan. His father Krishnakumar said that Mahipal started playing cricket at the age of 7-8 years. His house in Nagaur is near a stadium where he was enrolled in a cricket academy.
Within 3-4 months in the academy, the coaches Mukesh Prajapat and Kamal Purohit recognized Mahipal’s talent. Both the coaches advised Mahipal’s father to shift the son to Jaipur or Delhi so that the game could improve further.
At that time Mahipal’s grandmother Singari Devi said, ‘I will go with Mahipal. I will make him a cricketer.’ Mahipal shifted to Jaipur in 2012 with his grandparents and got admission in Surana Academy.
Due to his impressive performance, he got selected in the Under-14 team from Rajasthan to take on Mumbai where he struck an unbeaten double century and later got a place in India’s under-19 team for the 2016 under-19 World Cup; in the squad were also the likes of Ishan Kishan and Rishabh Pant.
Brilliant showing everywhere earned him Ranji and white-ball domestic debuts. He was first picked in the IPL by Delhi in 2016 before going to Rajasthan Royals at a contract of 20 lakh changing his life. He’s played 12 IPL matches and has scored 197 runs.
Lomror has a considerable domestic experience of 35 first-class games and over 90 white-ball matches. He can also chip in with part-time left-arm orthodox bowling. Lomror’s batting idol is Adam Gilchrist and bowling idol is Ravindra Jadeja.
Former cricketer Chandrakant Pandit had watched Lomor strike the ball cleanly many years ago and gave him the nickname ‘Junior Gayle’ and ‘Chris Gayle of India’.
