Most Wickets in NPL History: Scott Kuggeleijn Tops the Bowling Chart
New Zealand fast bowler Scott Kuggeleijn is the most successful bowler in Nepal Premier League history, with 27 wickets across the first two seasons. Behind him, Nepal’s own Karan KC has quietly built the second-biggest haul, and the 2025 season produced a rare three-way tie at the top of the wicket charts. Here is the complete picture of the most wickets in NPL history, season by season, with the economy rates and best figures that explain how each bowler got there.
All figures cover the two completed NPL seasons, 2024 and 2025, and are drawn from ESPNcricinfo’s tournament records. Season 3, which began on 26 October 2026, is not included.
Most Wickets in NPL History: The All-Time Leaders
Kuggeleijn’s record is built on two very different seasons. He took 17 wickets in the inaugural 2024 season, joint-most that year, and followed it with 10 more in 2025 for Sudurpaschim Royals, taking his career tally to 27 from 16 matches. His best figures of 5/18 remain one of only a handful of five-wicket hauls in the league’s short history.
| Rank | Bowler | Team | Matches | Wickets | Best Figures |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Scott Kuggeleijn | Sudurpaschim Royals | 16 | 27 | 5/18 |
| 2 | Karan KC | Kathmandu Gorkhas | 17 | 25 | 4/21 |
Karan KC is the highest-ranked Nepalese bowler on the all-time list and the Kathmandu franchise’s leading NPL wicket-taker. His 25 wickets have come at a steady rate across both seasons — 12 in 2024 and 13 in 2025 — and his best figures of 4/21 show a bowler who has rarely been taken apart. With only two wickets to make up on Kuggeleijn, and with Kathmandu’s new-ball attack built around him again in Season 3, KC is the most likely bowler to take over the record.
Beyond the top two, the career chart is harder to pin down exactly, because several bowlers piled up big numbers in a single season. The three men who shared the 2025 wicket-taking lead — Sandeep Lamichhane, Abinash Bohara and Sher Malla, with 17 wickets each — all sit just behind the leaders on career tallies, and any of them could surge past 25 wickets with another strong season.
Most Wickets in NPL 2024 Season
The inaugural season belonged to two bowlers who finished locked together on 17 wickets. Kuggeleijn’s pace and Lalit Rajbanshi’s left-arm spin were the twin threats of the first NPL, and their shared lead set the tone for a league in which no single bowler has ever run away with the charts.
| Bowler | Team | Matches | Wickets | Best Figures | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scott Kuggeleijn | Sudurpaschim Royals | 9 | 17 | 5/18 | 12.35 |
| Lalit Rajbanshi | Janakpur Bolts | 10 | 17 | 3/8 | 12.52 |
| Sohail Tanvir | Chitwan Rhinos | 8 | 14 | 5/21 | 12.42 |
| Kishore Mahato | Janakpur Bolts | 10 | 14 | 4/35 | 18.92 |
| Bipin Sharma | Karnali Yaks | 8 | 13 | 3/17 | 13.15 |
| Rijan Dhakal | Chitwan Rhinos | 8 | 13 | 3/10 | 17.84 |
| Saif Zaib | Sudurpaschim Royals | 9 | 12 | 3/33 | 12.58 |
| Karan KC | Kathmandu Gurkhas | 7 | 12 | 4/16 | 12.66 |
Lalit Rajbanshi’s 17 wickets were remarkable for their economy as much as their number. He conceded only 5.32 runs per over across 40 overs, including five maidens — the most maidens bowled by anyone in the 2024 season. His best figures of 3/8 show a spinner who strangled batters rather than blasting them out, and he was a central reason Janakpur Bolts won the first title.
Most Wickets in NPL 2025 Season
The 2025 season went one better than 2024: three bowlers finished tied on 17 wickets. Sandeep Lamichhane, Abinash Bohara and Sher Malla could not be separated at the top, and the tie tells its own story about how evenly matched the league’s bowling attacks had become.
| Bowler | Team | Wickets | Best Figures | Economy Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sandeep Lamichhane | Biratnagar Kings | 17 | 4/11 | 4.92 |
| Abinash Bohara | Sudurpaschim Royals | 17 | 4/30 | 7.45 |
| Sher Malla | Lumbini Lions | 17 | 3/18 | 6.50 |
| Ruben Trumpelmann | Lumbini Lions | 15 | 3/3 | 6.72 |
| Shahab Alam | Kathmandu Gorkhas | 13 | 6/25 | 6.21 |
| Karan KC | Kathmandu Gorkhas | 13 | 4/30 | 7.42 |
| Harmeet Singh | Sudurpaschim Royals | 12 | 3/22 | 6.18 |
| Scott Kuggeleijn | Sudurpaschim Royals | 10 | 3/22 | 6.03 |
Sandeep Lamichhane’s 17 wickets were the most eye-catching of the three, because they came at an economy rate of just 4.92 — the best among the leading wicket-takers — and included figures of 4/11. The Nepal leg-spinner, captaining Biratnagar Kings, was both the most penetrative and the most economical bowler of the season, a combination no other bowler matched.
Shahab Alam’s 13 wickets deserve a special mention. The Kathmandu left-arm spinner’s tally included the best figures in NPL history, 6/25 against Pokhara Avengers, complete with the league’s first hat-trick. Without that single spell, he would not feature on this list at all; with it, he became one of the stories of the season.
Economy Rates: The Bowlers Batters Could Not Score Off
Wickets only tell half the story. The other half is economy rate, and here two spinners stand out. Lalit Rajbanshi conceded only 5.32 runs per over across 40 overs in the 2024 season, including five maidens — the most maidens bowled by anyone that year — while taking 17 wickets. In 2025, Sandeep Lamichhane went even further, taking 17 wickets at an economy rate of just 4.92, the best among the season’s leading wicket-takers, with best figures of 4/11.
Those two seasons are the gold standard for control in the NPL. Rajbanshi’s 2024 economy rate and Lamichhane’s 2025 economy rate are the best among the leading wicket-takers of their respective seasons, and both bowlers’ teams benefited enormously: Janakpur Bolts won the title in 2024, and Biratnagar Kings reached the playoffs in 2025. In a league where 150-plus totals are the norm, a bowler who concedes under five runs an over changes the entire shape of a match.
Scott Kuggeleijn: How the NPL’s Leading Wicket-Taker Did It
Kuggeleijn’s record rests on two skills: bounce at Kirtipur and death-overs nerve. His 5/18 in the 2024 season was one of only a handful of five-wicket hauls in the league’s short history, and his strike rate of a wicket every 10.17 balls in 2024 was outstanding for a bowler with 17 wickets. In 2025 he took 10 more wickets at an economy rate of 6.03, proving that his first-season success was no flash in the pan.
His value to Sudurpaschim Royals goes beyond the wickets column. The Royals have reached both NPL finals, and Kuggeleijn has been their overseas spearhead in both campaigns. If he returns for Season 3, the 30-wicket barrier — untouched so far in NPL history — is the obvious next milestone.
Who Can Take the NPL Wickets Record in Season 3?
Karan KC needs only three wickets to pass Kuggeleijn, and he has taken at least 12 in each of the first two seasons, so the record could change hands within the first week of Season 3. Sandeep Lamichhane, fresh from a 17-wicket season, is the other obvious candidate, while Abinash Bohara and Sher Malla will both fancy their chances of repeating their 2025 hauls. The NPL 2026 squads show all four still leading their franchises’ attacks, and the NPL 2026 today match page follows each day’s fixtures as the race unfolds.
FAQs: Most Wickets in NPL History
Who has taken the most wickets in NPL history?
Scott Kuggeleijn of Sudurpaschim Royals, with 27 wickets from 16 matches across the 2024 and 2025 seasons.
Who is the highest Nepalese wicket-taker in the NPL?
Karan KC of Kathmandu Gorkhas, with 25 wickets — just two behind Kuggeleijn.
Who took the most wickets in a single NPL season?
Five bowlers share the single-season record of 17 wickets: Scott Kuggeleijn and Lalit Rajbanshi in 2024, and Sandeep Lamichhane, Abinash Bohara and Sher Malla in 2025.
What are the best bowling figures in NPL history?
Shahab Alam’s 6/25 for Kathmandu Gorkhas against Pokhara Avengers in 2025, which included the league’s first hat-trick.