will KKR take a preposterous decision of dropping !!

 

On Apr 27, 2019, United States of America played Papua New Guinea in ICC World Cricket League and lost the ODI  ! ~ Khan made his debut .. .. will KKR take a preposterous decision of dropping DK ??

Today on Vijayadasami day, we will watch the 46^th IPL 2020 match at Sharjah with CSK only team out of contention for play-off.  Today Kolkata Knight Riders play  Kings XI Punjab.  KX1 were  at the bottom of the pile only 10 days ago. Suddenly, they have won  four games on the trot, and looking for a fifth that will vault them into playoff contention.  Kolkata Knight Riders will move up to 14 points with a win, and will open up a four-point lead between them and the fifth-placed Kings XI Punjab. If they lose,  KKR can still get up to 16 points if they win their two remaining matches, but Kings XI can also get there with two wins, and they will do so with a better NRR. Incidentally, both teams will play Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings in their last two matches.  If  KKR win only one of their remaining two games, then they will finish on 14, and will be at the mercy of other results going their way. If it comes down to NRR, they will probably lose out.

At this stage, will team management try any new face ? – unlikely it would appear .. .. there was a stray suggestion that they might drop Dinesh Karthik and bring in NZ Tim Seifert who has just joined them .. .. how ? is a long story !

Five days after his 28th birthday in Dec  2018, Ali Khan (who ?) was sitting on the front steps of a Florida mansion known as the Cricketplex Resort, sobbing. Minutes earlier, Khan and three friends - Maq Qureshi, Shawn Qureshi, and former Pakistan Test batsman Faisal Iqbal - had been watching the IPL auction on a giant plasma screen with climactic excitement. After waking up at 5am for the auction coverage from Jaipur, Khan and his pals had waited more than four hours for the moment his name would be put up. It only took another 29 seconds for the auctioneer to turn Khan's dream into a nightmare, slamming down his gavel to shout, "Unsold!"

Khan had performed well for  Trinbago Knight Riders (TKR) coming in  as a replacement for Ronsford Beaton in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL).  He took   16 wickets in a title-winning campaign.  .. .. then KKR roped   in USA's 29-year-old fast bowler Ali Khan as a replacement for the English seamer Harry Gurney. Gurney  was scheduled to have surgery related to a shoulder injury, and pulled out of both the IPL and England's Vitality Blast last month. Khan's signing made him the first USA player to feature in the IPL.

Muhammad Ahsan Ali Khan, was born in   Attock, Punjab, Pakistan and had hoped to play in IPL just as   Rashid Khan has done for Afghanistan.  Nicknamed 'The Yorker Machine' for his pinpoint accuracy, the 29-year-old was picked up by KKR after impressing in the Caribbean Premier League for the Trinbago Knight Riders. Born in the Attock region of Pakistan, Khan and his family moved to USA when he was 19. The idea of playing elite-level cricket was nothing short of a pipedream and then   flying with West Indies' Sunil Narine and coach Brendon McCullum in a private jet   was a surreal moment."

Leg-spinner Rashid Khan, the world's number one ranked T20 bowler, has undeniably put Afghanistan cricket on the map.  Khan wanted to replicate his success for America !   but all that hope fell flat as a   side strain that he had carried with him from the CPL to the UAE has forced him to return home.   New Zealand wicketkeeper-batsman Tim Seifert has been roped in as Khan's replacement.

A report in Stuff on Friday had mentioned that Northern Districts, Seifert's domestic team, had "confirmed" that the cricketer "was another absentee [for the Plunket Shield] in coming weeks, summoned to the IPL as a replacement player". Seifert, is a short-format specialist, who has turned out for New Zealand in three ODIs and 24 T20Is, and averages 22.85 with a strike rate of 139.75 in the latter.

IPL is no doubt interesting !

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

26.10.2020 @ 18:50 hrs.