Bhurtel opens the batting for Nepal and is built around intent from ball one. He targets the powerplay hard, backing his ability to clear the straight boundary and to punch through the off side against pace. His three consecutive half-centuries on T20I debut in 2021 and his 129 off 43 balls against China in 2026, including six consecutive sixes in a single over, are the clearest evidence of that high-risk, high-reward approach.

He was originally a medium-pace bowler as a teenager but went wicketless through the 2016 Under-19 World Cup and subsequently reinvented himself as a leg-spinner. Under former Nepal coaches Manoj Prabhakar and Monty Desai, that bowling has become a genuine second string, with wickets against sides including South Africa and the UAE.

He is also regarded as a sharp fielder, and his growing all-round profile — bat, ball and field — is a large part of why he was drafted into the 2026 Lanka Premier League.

Bhurtel grew up in Butwal and started out as a lower-order power-hitter and medium-pace bowler. He represented Nepal at the 2016 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup in Bangladesh, where Nepal reached the quarter-finals, but he did not take a wicket in the tournament as a bowler — a result that pushed him to refocus on his batting and, eventually, on leg-spin.

He played a match for Nepal's senior team against the United States in 2017, though it did not carry official List A status. His actual List A debut came in the 2019 ACC Emerging Teams Asia Cup against India's Emerging side, and later that year he was part of the Nepal squad that won bronze at the South Asian Games.

Before his international breakthrough, Bhurtel played domestic cricket in Nepal, including the Everest Premier League, where his performances first caught the attention of national selectors and then-coach Dav Whatmore.

Bhurtel made his Nepal debut in the 2020–21 Nepal Tri-Nation Series. He was drafted in as a replacement for the injured Paras Khadka and made an immediate impact: he top-scored with 62 on his T20I debut against the Netherlands on 17 April 2021, and went on to score half-centuries in each of his first three matches — the first player in T20I history to do so. He finished the series with 278 runs at an average of 69.50 and was named Player of the Series.

He made his ODI debut later in 2021 against the Netherlands, and produced a match-winning 84 against the USA in only his third ODI. In early 2022, he scored an unbeaten 104 off 61 balls against the Philippines to become just the third Nepali batter to score a T20I century. On 14 February 2023, he scored 115 in a home ODI, becoming the third Nepali batter to score centuries in both ODI and T20I cricket.

Bhurtel was part of Nepal's squad for the 2024 Men's T20 World Cup, where his bowling stood out, including 4 for 19 against South Africa. He was retained for the 2026 Men's T20 World Cup, featuring against sides including England and Italy.

His standout 2026 international moment came on 31 May 2026 in the Asian Games Men's Qualifier in Singapore, where he scored 129 off 43 balls against China, including six consecutive sixes off left-arm spinner Chen Zhuo Yue in the ninth over. It made him the sixth player — and only the second Nepali, after Dipendra Singh Airee — to hit six sixes in a single T20I over, and helped Nepal post 313 for 2.

Bhurtel's franchise experience has, until recently, been confined to Nepal. That changed in 2026 when he was signed by the Colombo Kaps (also styled Colombo Caps) in the Lanka Premier League draft, alongside national teammates Dipendra Singh Airee and Sandeep Lamichhane, his first contract in an overseas T20 league.

Bhurtel has been a marquee player in the Nepal Premier League since its early seasons, representing Pokhara Avengers. He was part of the Pokhara Avengers squad in NPL 2025 and was retained by the franchise as a marquee player ahead of NPL's third edition, confirmed in the franchise's mini-auction retentions in July 2026.

There is no verified record of Kushal Bhurtel having captained the Nepal national team or a Nepal Premier League franchise. He is a senior, marquee-status player at Pokhara Avengers and a senior batter within the Nepal set-up, but verified captaincy statistics are not currently available in the PDF source.