Sunil Chhetri nails fielding drills while training at National Cricket Academy; WATCH

The young cricketers from North East and Plate Teams are currently training at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) and on Sunday they received a major surprise with Indian Football team skipper Sunil Chhetri paying visit to the academy. Chhetri decided to try his hand in fielding drills and looked to have aced it. The video of the same was shared by the BCCI social media team.

Sunil Chhetri's cricket experience at National Cricket Academy

In the video Sunil Chhetri can be running to catch the ball and throwing it back. The BCCI captioned the image, "NCA's Neighbour, Indian Football Captain and Legend, @chetrisunil11 dropping by on Sunday evening. He had a delightful fielding competition and shared some learnings from his own incredible journey in Football with the boys from North East and Plate Teams". 

BCCI also tweeted an image of Chhetri having a session along with VVS Laxman at the NCA.

Sunil Chhetri's football career

Sunil Chhetri so far played 125 matches for India in his 17-year-long career. The striker has been the poster boy of Indian Football since the retirement of former captain Bhaiching Bhutia in 2011. With 74 goals, Chhetri is India’s leading goal scorer for the country. The Bengaluru FC striker is the only Indian player to score a hat-trick on three different occasions in international football. He is the only player to win six All India Football Federation (AIFF) Player of the Year awards which he won in 2007, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2017, and 2018–19. 

His three international hat-tricks came against Tajikistan, Vietnam, and Chinese Taipei in 2008, 2010, and 2018 respectively. Chhetri also has two Indian Super League (ISL) hat-tricks under his belt, which came against Northeast United and Pune City in 2015 and 2018 respectively. 

Chhetri was the third Indian subcontinent player to play for a foreign club. The Indian Striker signed for club football on three different continents - Asia, Europe, and North America. No other Indian footballer has signed for foreign clubs on three different continents. Chhetri has played for Kansas City Wizards of the Major League Soccer (US), Sporting Lisbon (Portugal, Europe) and Indian clubs in Asia. He was signed for Queens Park Rangers (UK, Europe), however, Chhetri never got the chance to represent Queens Park Rangers as he was denied a work visa by the British.