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By Peter Della Penna (on Twitter)

January 26, 2011. USA vs. Oman in Hong Kong. It was a day when USA pulled off a remarkable triumph, recovering from 20 for 7 to win by two wickets. Unfortunately, that memory quietly faded away in the minds of most people who follow US cricket because it was bookended by two games with varying degrees of humiliation. USA was bowled out by Papua New Guinea for 44 on January 25 and a January 28 loss to Italy sealed USA’s relegation back to Division Four of the ICC’s World Cricket League.

For a time, it appeared that one of the heroes of that match against Oman would be discarded forever just like the memory of that game. Despite taking 3 for 11 and scoring 31 not out as part of a 71-run unbroken ninth wicket stand against Oman, in addition to being one of USA’s most consistent performers throughout the Hong Kong tour, Khan was surprisingly dropped for the 2011 ICC Americas Division One Twenty20 tournament in July. Rather than pout about it, Khan said it only made him work overtime to force his way back into the USA team for the 2012 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier in the UAE.

“At that moment to me I thought that it was a harsh call, but I think everything happens for a reason,” said Khan in an interview with DreamCricket. “When I got dropped, I got more determined. I started working extra hard. I thought that I’m going to come back. I was working hard on my fitness.”

Image (right) - Asif Khan in action at 2011 ICC WCL Division Three in Hong Kong. [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket]

“When I got selected for Hong Kong, I wasn’t in the shape I should have been or the fitness level that I ideally should have been. It kind of worked in my favor being dropped because I had to reflect. I thought I’m not where I’m supposed to be and I need to be way better than that.”

Khan is hoping to prove he’s better than what he showed in Hong Kong, which wasn’t even bad to begin with. The 33-year-old left-arm spinner grew up in Karachi, Pakistan before his family moved to Islamabad when he was a teenager. After working his way through the local cricket scene, he made his first-class cricket debut as a 17-year-old in 1996 for the Islamabad Cricket Association against a Lahore team that included Mushtaq Ahmed, Ata-ur-Rehman, and Mohammad Asif.

Khan also captained the Islamabad U-19 team in the domestic U-19 tournament to a Grade II four-day tournament final victory over a Gujranwala U-19 side which contained Abdur Rehman and had Shoaib Malik as captain. After playing six first-class games before the age of 19 for Islamabad, cricket clashed with the wishes of Khan’s parents for him to finish his university studies.

“My mother didn’t want me to play cricket at all,” said Khan. “She wanted me to finish my studies and concentrate on my studies. My father used to help me out a little bit and support me but I never had very strong support from my parents. They always stressed the importance of education and educating myself. It was to a point where I had to choose one or else you’re on your own.”

Khan put his cricket career on hold to attend college in Islamabad and eventually he moved to the USA in August of 2001 to take up a scholarship offer at Winona State University to pursue coursework in computer science. “It was a whole new experience. I didn’t imagine it was going to be like this. It’s a totally different culture, different people. I took at least two years to get adjusted. America was not a place where you could ever imagine to play cricket. I didn’t have any idea cricket is played here until 2004 when I came across a couple of guys playing in a tennis court.”

By this point in time, Khan had transferred from Winona State to University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where he also switched majors to focus on health sciences. After his fateful tennis court meeting with members of the Milwaukee Cricket Club, Khan started playing with their team in the Midwest Cricket Conference. Khan graduated from UWM in 2006 with a Bachelor of Science degree in radiology technology and in 2007, he became a US citizen. In 2008 he was picked to play for the Central East Region team for the first time. After a string of miserly performances at national tournaments for the Central East, Khan was picked to play for USA to go to Hong Kong in 2011.

Khan’s early personal experiences on the trip might have been a harbinger of things to come for the rest of the team. The team flew Cathay Pacific from JFK to Hong Kong. When the team landed, Khan discovered that the airline had lost all of his luggage, including all of his cricket kit.

“At that time our manager was Imran and Imran helped me buying stuff,” said Khan. “I didn’t have my spikes. I lost my bat. I had to have spikes to bowl. He helped me a lot with buying stuff. Aditya [Thyagarajan] gave me his pads. I was batting with Sushil’s [Nadkarni] bat.”

In the team’s first warm-up match on tour, Khan says he was a bit nervous and it showed in his performance. For a moment he started to doubt himself, but says that the senior players did a lot to keep his confidence intact with their support.

“It took me some time to adjust,” said Khan. “I gave up like 40 runs in six overs without any wicket. I didn’t bowl very well. That was not the kind of start I was looking for. But Steve [Massiah], Sushil and Aditya, especially Aditya and Sushil, they were really pushing me and talking to me throughout the tour. They supported me a lot. After the first game, Steve said, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.’ I was worried I wouldn’t play the first game, but eventually I was told I was in the XI.”

In USA’s first match against Hong Kong, Khan bowled respectably on a Kowloon Cricket Club ground with short boundaries and little margin for error for a spinner. He returned figures of 10-0-41-0 as USA won by seven wickets and a day later took 2 for 31 in a gut-wrenching 30-run loss to Denmark.

After USA’s annihilation at the hands of PNG, Khan delivered in the clutch for USA against Oman. The match looked like it would be a cakewalk after Khan took three wickets to help bowl Oman out for 122, but two hours later, the team was in dire straits at 8 for 52 when he joined Usman Shuja at the crease.

“The good thing was that I had a little knock against Denmark and that boosted my confidence batting wise,” said Khan, who finished 17 not out in the loss to Denmark. “I knew that if I stayed there, the good thing was we were not chasing a big total and we had plenty of overs to spare.”

“My initial conversation when I came to the crease, I told Usman, ‘Don’t think that I’m gonna get out. I’m not gonna get out for sure. Don’t worry about that. Just wipe that thing out of your mind. Just watch your wicket, I’m gonna watch my wicket. Just let me settle down a few overs. Let me see the ball well. Once I start seeing the ball well, don’t worry. We’ll rotate the strike. There is nothing wrong with playing a few overs of dot balls just to get ourselves in.’ Once we did that, we’ll win. At that moment, I never thought of losing the game.”

Khan eventually hit the winning runs over mid-on but the excitement faded two days later with the loss to Italy. Then came the news five months later that he’d been dropped from the squad.

With a new USACA Cricket Committee put in place toward the end of 2011, Khan received an invite to come to a USACA selection camp in January in Florida where he had to take on two incumbent left-arm orthodox spinners from the USA squad in July, Bhim George and Samarth Shah. However, Khan impressed the selectors enough to be chosen ahead of George and Shah to be what new USA captain Sushil Nadkarni says is the team’s “front line spin option” in the UAE.

Image (left) - Khan hit the winning shot here against Oman in January 2011, but was left out of USA's next tournament squad in July. [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket]

“When Asif came into the selection games, he hadn’t played much cricket because of where he was coming from [in Wisconsin],” said Nadkarni. “After he bowled one over, he was warmed up and basically all through the selection games from then on looked like somebody who was distinguishing himself amongst all the spinners based on his experience and his control and his variations.”

“When he came into Hong Kong, I feel like he was one of the finds of the tournament and pretty much was one of the few players that had a really good tournament. I go back to the game which we won against Oman where Asif had three wickets in that game and then put on a partnership with Usman Shuja to win the game for USA from 20 for 7 to chasing 110 plus. He has played first class cricket in Pakistan. He definitely brings to us a wealth of experience. He is considered one of the senior members of this team. So absolutely I would expect that other younger folks and younger spinners on the team talk to Asif and try to get some good tips on the approach and the mental preparation for the big games.”

Khan works two separate jobs from Monday through Friday as an MRI technician for different medical groups in Milwaukee. The first goes from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. before he heads off to the second job from 5 until 8 p.m. He gets home from work at 8:30, eats dinner and spends a little bit of time with his wife Ghazal and two kids, a 26-month-old son named Azaan and a 13-month-old daughter named Emaan. He then heads off to the gym at 10 p.m. to work on his fitness before coming home around midnight.

On some Saturdays, Khan also has to work from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., but afterwards he drives two hours to Chicago, taking his family with him, for indoor practice sessions organized and paid for by the Midwest Cricket Conference. He then drives two hours back to Chicago the same night before driving back to Chicago again with his family on Sundays for another practice session.

Even though there are few opportunities to devote to training outside of work and family, Khan says he’s tried to make the most of them ahead of this tour. As a result, he says he’s lost 10 to 12 pounds since the USACA camp in January and feels fitter than he has at any point in time since coming to America. He believes the commitment to fitness is being taken seriously by everyone in the team ahead of this tournament and that the results on the field will show it.

“We have quite a few fresh legs in the team and I think the senior players are fitter and stronger than ever,” said Khan. “I believe the way the team is looking right now, I think we have a very good chance of qualifying. I have no doubt in my mind that we are capable of qualifying. We just need to play together and play as a team.”

If the USA qualifies for the 2012 ICC World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka, Khan’s role in achieving that will be vital. After the heartbreak of Hong Kong, he hopes that USA will bounce back and prove to everyone that the team’s last place finish at ICC WCL Division Three was just an aberration and not the start of a trend.

“Our credibility is on the line because we didn’t do well in Hong Kong,” said Khan. “Nobody in this tournament is taking us seriously. I think everybody has kind of wrote us out already. We are determined to prove ourselves and we want to show the rest of the world that yes we belong at this top level and that we are capable of performing.”