Rashid Khan: IPL 2026: When Rashid Khan was rejected for Afghanistan Under-19 trials. cricket news
New Delhi: Rashid Khan According to the latest ICC rankings, he is the number one bowler in the world in both T20 and ODI today. But a new biography says Afghanistan’s spin magician – a crowd-pulling megastar in the cricket world – was rejected at the under-19 national selection trials. It was the summer of 2016, and despite the scorching heat, the teenager stood in line with thousands of hopefuls from different parts of the conflict-torn country at the Ghazi Amanullah Khan Stadium, about 15 kilometers from Jalalabad city in eastern Afghanistan.The farm-fresh book, ‘Rashid Khan: From Streets to Stardom’ written by Zafar Hand states that Daulat Ahmadzai and Abdul Wali Amin, two distinguished former cricketers who were coaches of the Afghanistan Cricket Board, were tasked with identifying talent.
Go beyond limits with our YouTube channel. Subscribe now!The wait was long and Rashid, who was watching the open hearing for the first time, was eager to show his stuff. The book clearly states what actually happened.A coach asked him whether he was a batsman or a bowler. Rashid replied that he is an all-rounder. But the youngster was told that he could only choose one of two positions: bowler or batsman.Forced to make a choice, Rashid sought advice from the friends who had accompanied him. “I talked to my friends and chose batting as the preferred option of the two roles. They agreed it was the right choice. I faced three or four balls, hit two and missed the rest. The coach said, ‘That’s all. Thanks for coming,'” the book says. Rashid was rejected.Interestingly, both of them later became Rashid’s coaches. And coincidentally, as per the current update of the ICC rankings, the leg break and googly bowler from Nangarhar Province is rated the world No. 7 all-rounder in ODIs and No. 14 in T20Is. This is because the world’s foremost white-ball bowler has the rare gift of hitting big hits instantly and winning games for both the country (Afghanistan) and clubs around the world. IPLSunrisers Hyderabad and Gujarat Titans.IPL fans will remember how Rashid hit a six. david millerA sensational robbery was carried out against CSK in April, 2022. The cricketer recalls the excitement when he got the message from coach Ashish Nehra to become the stand-in captain for GT in place of the injured Hardik Pandya.The message read, “Khan Saheb, get ready. You will captain the team tomorrow. Pandya cannot play.” “That night, I couldn’t sleep,” Rashid recalls. “Not because I was nervous about captaining, but because I couldn’t believe it was happening. An Afghan player would go for the toss in the IPL against Chennai! I kept thinking: people will remember the name Afghanistan differently,” he says in the book, which was originally published in Pashto as ‘Rashid, Khan of Cricket’.That day, Rashid created history as the first Afghan to captain and win a match in the IPL. Hand writes, “Millions of spectators in India and beyond witnessed an exciting match and a new image of Afghanistan because of Rashid’s cool, smart leadership. It became a moment of national pride for Afghans everywhere.”