Lokesh Bam — the league’s top run-scorer, carrying Biratnagar

Season 3 in numbers

Five matches, 194 runs at an average of 38.80, and a strike rate of 153.97. Bam is the only batter in the league to have passed 190 runs, and his two fifties — 87 against Karnali Yaks and 50 against Janakpur Bolts — are the two biggest innings of Biratnagar’s season.

Season 3 figures cover every completed match through Match 21 (the abandoned Match 7 produced no play), compiled from the published match scorecards and updated 10 November 2026.

The 87 came in a losing cause. Chasing 188 against Karnali Yaks, Bam hit 87 from 52 balls and still watched his side lose by four wickets — the story of Biratnagar’s season in one innings. The 50 against Janakpur Bolts came in the two-run win, the closest finish of the season so far, and his 26 in the opener against Chitwan Rhinos was the second-highest score of that innings too.

Only the Kathmandu game went wrong: 6 from 10 balls on the night the Kings were bowled out for 83, their lowest total of the season. Behind the stumps he is the side’s senior gloveman, keeping to Sandeep Lamichhane’s leg-break for a third straight season — the keeping-batting double that lets the Kings field their deep all-rounder stocks.

Match by match

Every Lokesh Bam innings in NPL Season 3 so far, in the order they happened.

The pattern is stark: when Bam scores, Biratnagar compete; when he fails, they collapse. His 87 against Karnali was 47 percent of the side’s 186, his 50 against Janakpur came in a 174-run total, and his 25 in the five-over game against Sudurpaschim Royals was the second-highest score of a 105-run innings. The one innings that breaks the pattern is the Kathmandu game — 6 runs, and the Kings managed only 83.

His strike rate of 153.97 is built on the six-hitting: 16 sixes in five innings, four more than any other player in the league, and 12 fours besides. He opens the batting, so the powerplay is where the damage is done — and where Biratnagar’s season is usually decided inside the first six overs.

The league’s top run-scorer

Bam’s 194 runs lead the whole league — 23 ahead of Chitwan Rhinos’ Ravi Bopara on 171, and 50 ahead of his own team-mate Andre Russell on 144. No other batter in NPL Season 3 has two fifties and a strike rate above 150.

The record did not come from nowhere. Bam was retained on 16 June 2026 after two seasons as the Kings’ first-choice keeper, and his best league campaign before this one was NPL 2025, when his high score was 72. Across 24 NPL matches he has 383 runs. The international stage came first: a Nepal international with 23 T20I caps, he made his debut against the UAE in February 2022 and announced himself at the 2026 T20 World Cup with an unbeaten 39 from 20 balls against England at Wankhede.

His T20I strike rate sits in the 150s, which marks him as a powerplay aggressor rather than an accumulator — and Season 3 has been the same player, just with more runs. The question for the last two games is whether the rest of the batting can give him the support his numbers deserve.

Where the Kings stand

Bam’s 194 runs are the most in the league, and the Kings’ season runs through him: Biratnagar Kings are sixth after Match 21 — four points from five games, with a net run rate of −0.820. The full table is on the NPL Points Table, and every result is on the NPL Results page.

Bam’s runs lead a side that has lost three of its five games, and the gap between him and the rest is the story of the season: Russell is next on 144, then Imran Sheikh on 100, and nobody else has passed 70. Two wins from the last two league games would take the Kings to 8 points and almost certainly into the playoffs — and both of those wins would almost certainly need another big innings from the man at the top of the order.

What’s next

Two league games left in the Nepal Premier League, then the playoffs. The full list of every NPL fixture is on the NPL Schedule.

• Match 22 — Biratnagar Kings vs Pokhara Avengers: Thursday 12 November 2026, 12:30 PM NST (11:45 AM PKT, 6:45 AM UTC), TU International Cricket Ground, Kirtipur.
• Match 26 — Biratnagar Kings vs Lumbini Lions: Saturday 14 November 2026, 4:30 PM NST (3:45 PM PKT, 10:45 AM UTC), TU International Cricket Ground, Kirtipur.
• Playoffs: Qualifier 1 on Tuesday 17 November, the Eliminator on Wednesday 18 November, Qualifier 2 on Thursday 19 November, and the final on Saturday 21 November — every playoff starts at 4:30 PM NST.

Follow every NPL result as it happens on SialTV, with the points table updated after every match day.