The Kolkata Knight Riders have hired 29-year-old US fast pitcher Ali Khan as a replacement for English fisherman Harry Gurney. Gurney is scheduled to undergo surgery related to a shoulder injury, and last month he withdrew from the IPL and England’s Vitality Blast. Khan’s signing will make him the first US player to participate in the IPL.
He reaches the end of a season with the Trinbago Knight Riders, the CPL franchise with the same parent company as KKR, in which they won all 12 games to seal the title. He was seen in an Instagram story post by Trinbago and Chennai Super Kings SUV Dwayne Bravo shot inside a plane, with the caption “next stop in Dubai.”
Khan has been among the best fast pitchers in the CPL and among the best for the past three years, earning him contracts in T20 leagues around the world. He was also on KKR’s radar as a reserve player last season. This CPL season, he took eight wickets in eight games with an economy rating of 7.43.
Khan reaches speeds of over 140 km / h and often goes bowling over big obstacles, and is known in particular for having a good yorker. Among his standout performances is a 49th over effort against Namibia in 2019, when he took three wickets to derail a chase that had been reduced to 14 out of 12, to keep alive the US quest for ODI status. He was also Man of the Match in the United States’ first win over Kenya in 2018.
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His big break at the T20 league stage came in 2018, after Bravo, the then Trinbago captain, spotted him at Global T20 Canada. Bravo took him to the CPL, and in that debut season, Khan took 16 wickets in 12 games, the second most among fast bowlers on all teams. Since then, he has been in the Bangladesh Premier League and also in the Pakistani Super League.
Aside from Khan, the Knight Riders overseas contingent includes hitters Eoin Morgan and Tom Banton, off-roader Andre Russell, spinners (and pinch hitter) Sunil Narine and Chris Green, and pacemakers Pat Cummins and Lockie Ferguson. . Morgan, Russell, Narine and Cummins are expected to be the first-choice players for the four overseas spots in the XI, at least to start the tournament.
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