Former champion Kolkata Knight Riders have replaced Harry Gurney with US fast pitcher Ali Khan for IPL 2020 in UAE. The bowler was also on KKR’s radar as a reserve player last season.
The 29-year-old comes after a good season with Trinbago Knight Riders, the CPL franchise with the same parent company as KKR, in which they won all 12 games to seal the title. At CPL 2020, he took eight wickets in eight games with an economy rate of 7.43.
He was spotted in an Instagram story post by Trinbago and Chennai Super Kings SUV Dwayne Bravo from inside a plane, with the caption “next stop Dubai.”
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Khan becomes the first US player to play in the IPL. Interestingly, however, a former Rajasthan Royals bowler Rusty Theron, who now plays for the United States, featured the now-defunct Deccan Chargers in 2011 and Kings XI Punjab in 2010. Theron, who was part of the Royals in 2015, moved to America from South Africa. in 2019.
Khan can reach speeds of over 140 km / h and is often bowling in races, and is known to have 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.
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.
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