Amjad Khan is a former EnglandTest cricketer. Born and raised in Denmark, of Pakistani descent, he is a right-handed batsman and a right-arm fast-medium bowler. To date, he is the only person born in Denmark to play Test cricket.
Career
Khan, at the age of 17, is the youngest person ever to play for the Danish cricket team, the country of his birth. In his first full season at Kent County Cricket Club, in 2002, he claimed 63 wickets. He failed to regain his form for the next two seasons, taking a combined total of 31 wickets. In the seasons that followed, Khan performed better, taking 55 wickets in 2005 before recording 34 the season after, despite missing almost half of it through injury. In December 2006, Khan was awarded British citizenship, which made him eligible to be selected for England. It only took one month for the English selectors to recognise him, when they named him as part of a 14-man England 'A' squad to tour Bangladesh. Subsequently, he was named in the 30-man World Cup squad, although he was not selected in the final squad when it is halved to 15. At the end of February 2007, it was revealed that Khan had been ruled out for the entire 2007 season, after having surgery on his cruciate ligaments. However, following the 2008 season, Khan was named as one of the members of the "Development squad" of fringe players, to be sent to India as back-ups to the main England squad, because he had "impressed with his pace and swing". He gave away 16 runs in his first and only over during the Twenty20 Cup Semi-final, where Marcus Trescothick smashed four successive boundaries. Khan joined Sussex for the 2011 season replacing Corey Collymore On 20 March 2014, Sussex announced they had released Khan after his 2013 season was disrupted by injury. He captained Denmark in the 2016 ICC World Cricket League Division Four in Los Angeles, after team captainMichael Pedersen left the tournament to attend to a family emergency.
International recognition
In November 2008, Khan was called up to act as cover for Stuart Broad and Andrew Flintoff during the One Day International series in India. He never actually joined up with the one-day squad due to the Mumbai terrorist attacks, which forced the cancellation of the rest of the series. However, he was subsequently called up to the Test squad in place of the injured Ryan Sidebottom for the two-match series that followed. On 18 February 2009, Khan, along with Ravi Bopara, was invited to join the England Test squad on their tour of the West Indies as cover for Andrew Flintoff who was struggling with a hip injury. Khan played in his only Test in the 5th Test against the West Indies on 6 March 2009. His first over consisted of 9 balls, which included 3 no-balls, costing 7 runs. Khan took his only test wicket early on the third day of the 5th Test, trapping in-form batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan LBW. He was reprimanded by the match referee for excessive appealing. When it was announced that fast-bowler Ryan Sidebottom would be unable to play in the ODIs or T20s following the Test series because of a recurring injury, Khan was named as his replacement.
