In the decade and a half he spent putting together arguably the finest career yet by a UAE cricketer, Khurram Khan rarely looked flustered.
The all-rounder might have been one of the feistiest competitors the country has ever produced. But when he was at the batting crease, he was seldom anything other than calm and composed.
His move into coaching - and more specifically parenthood - has altered that, though. The former UAE captain’s son, Rayan, is showing great promise in the sport, although his dad often has to watch from behind the sofa.
“When I used to play cricket, when I went out to bat I was as calm as anything,” Khurram said.
“Now when he is batting, I can only watch four or five balls. In the [Under 19] Asia Cup, he played four or five matches here and the only one I could watch was against India.
“I watched the others on TV, because I didn’t have the courage to go and sit there and watch him. For the India game, I came here and sat watching with my wife, and there were always jitters.
“I cannot watch him batting. If he says he played well and scored some runs, I’ll turn on and watch the highlights.”
Happily, son Rayan is taking everything in his stride. Carrying on the family name in a country where his father achieved so much could be a burden. But, despite his youth, he appears to understand the challenges facing him.
Islamabad-born Rayan attended a non-cricket playing school in Sharjah. He became aware of the sport on the sidelines watching his dad as a small child, but only started pursuing it seriously in his mid-teens.
His progress was swift, and at 15 he was selected to play age-group cricket for the UAE.
“It felt good that I got selected so early, but there was a question in my mind, ‘Did I get selected because of my dad, or was it because of my performances?’,” Rayan said.
“But I went on to perform well in the camp, and so those doubts went away.”
Rayan was only eight when his father went off to represent the country for two months at the 2015 Cricket World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
His memories of that are vague, but he says watching his dad inspired a passion for the sport in himself.
“My first memory of cricket was going to The Sevens Stadium in Dubai and watching my dad play when I was nine. I absolutely fell in love with cricket,” Rayan said.
“I used to watch him play and I got motivated to do the same. That is how it started.”
Now he is making his own way in the sport. But he is aware he will be known by some for being the son of the player who as good as single-handedly inspired UAE’s qualification for T20 and 50-over World Cups a little over a decade ago.
“Two or three years ago, when I started playing good matches in A Division cricket, people would come up to me and say, ‘Your dad was one of the best in the UAE’,” he said.
“It is a big deal - the legacy he has in UAE cricket. I realised it was a big thing and that I should be grateful for it.
“It is scary sometimes when I go out to bat and I have to live up to his legacy and the expectations of it.
“But it is good because he can give me some good advice after all the years he has played. He has plenty of experience, so he can help me out. That is better for me.”
Tuition is, after all, Khurram’s day job now. After juggling his own playing career with a job with Emirates Airline, he is now a coach at Sharjah Cricket Academy.
It is scary sometimes when I go out to bat and I have to live up to his legacy
Rayan Khan
He says Rayan is more advanced than he was at his age. There is a good reason for that: Khurram played nothing more than tape-ball cricket before attending university, and was nearly 30 by the time he started out on international cricket with the UAE.
“I am coaching now, and there is the risk you always judge everybody at your standards,” Khurram said.
“But he is young. He started playing cricket at nine or 10, and he is only 18. I hadn’t even started playing cricket at 18; I started at university. He has a long way to go, but he is learning very fast.
“When somebody in your family has played cricket and you are living with that, obviously there is a positive side to it.
“There is also pressure. Whatever happens, every time he comes back I will talk him through his batting. If I have seen him batting I will ask what he was feeling, if he was feeling confident, and ask him to talk me through his innings.
“He will have that sort of pressure. He will know if he has got out in a certain way I will ask him about it, but there is always pressure.”
For all the wisdom his dad can impart, Rayan’s ambitions are his own. He has already had some noteworthy achievements, too, most obviously when he made a half-century against Pakistan in the U19 Asia Cup last winter.
He knows only performances, rather than a family name, will get him to where he wants to go. And that is the very top with the UAE senior men’s team.
“Being in the UAE, one of the biggest dreams is to help make UAE a Test nation,” Rayan said.
“You also want to make the ILT20 and play in T20 leagues. If you perform well in one, there is scope for you to play in more. If you play in three or four, you can make a big name for yourself.”
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre V8 twin-turbocharged and three electric motors
Power: Combined output 920hp
Torque: 730Nm at 4,000-7,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch automatic
Fuel consumption: 11.2L/100km
On sale: Now, deliveries expected later in 2025
Price: expected to start at Dh1,432,000
Second ODI
England 322-7 (50 ovs)
India 236 (50 ovs)
England win by 86 runs
Next match: Tuesday, July 17, Headingley
Venom
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Cast: Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed
Rating: 1.5/5
Jetour T1 specs
Engine: 2-litre turbocharged
Power: 254hp
Torque: 390Nm
Price: From Dh126,000
Available: Now
Afghanistan Premier League - at a glance
Venue: Sharjah Cricket Stadium
Fixtures:
Tue, Oct 16, 8pm: Kandahar Knights v Kabul Zwanan; Wed, Oct 17, 4pm: Balkh Legends v Nangarhar Leopards; 8pm: Kandahar Knights v Paktia Panthers; Thu, Oct 18, 4pm: Balkh Legends v Kandahar Knights; 8pm: Kabul Zwanan v Paktia Panthers; Fri, Oct 19, 8pm: First semi-final; Sat, Oct 20, 8pm: Second semi-final; Sun, Oct 21, 8pm: final
Table:
1. Balkh Legends 6 5 1 10
2. Paktia Panthers 6 4 2 8
3. Kabul Zwanan 6 3 3 6
4. Nagarhar Leopards 7 2 5 4
5. Kandahar Knights 5 1 4 2
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
How much do leading UAE’s UK curriculum schools charge for Year 6?
- Nord Anglia International School (Dubai) – Dh85,032
- Kings School Al Barsha (Dubai) – Dh71,905
- Brighton College Abu Dhabi - Dh68,560
- Jumeirah English Speaking School (Dubai) – Dh59,728
- Gems Wellington International School – Dubai Branch – Dh58,488
- The British School Al Khubairat (Abu Dhabi) - Dh54,170
- Dubai English Speaking School – Dh51,269
*Annual tuition fees covering the 2024/2025 academic year
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The specs
Engine: 2.7-litre 4-cylinder Turbomax
Power: 310hp
Torque: 583Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh192,500
On sale: Now
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
What are the main cyber security threats?
Cyber crime - This includes fraud, impersonation, scams and deepfake technology, tactics that are increasingly targeting infrastructure and exploiting human vulnerabilities.
Cyber terrorism - Social media platforms are used to spread radical ideologies, misinformation and disinformation, often with the aim of disrupting critical infrastructure such as power grids.
Cyber warfare - Shaped by geopolitical tension, hostile actors seek to infiltrate and compromise national infrastructure, using one country’s systems as a springboard to launch attacks on others.
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
What is an ETF?
An exchange traded fund is a type of investment fund that can be traded quickly and easily, just like stocks and shares. They come with no upfront costs aside from your brokerage's dealing charges and annual fees, which are far lower than on traditional mutual investment funds. Charges are as low as 0.03 per cent on one of the very cheapest (and most popular), Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, with the maximum around 0.75 per cent.
There is no fund manager deciding which stocks and other assets to invest in, instead they passively track their chosen index, country, region or commodity, regardless of whether it goes up or down.
The first ETF was launched as recently as 1993, but the sector boasted $5.78 billion in assets under management at the end of September as inflows hit record highs, according to the latest figures from ETFGI, a leading independent research and consultancy firm.
There are thousands to choose from, with the five largest providers BlackRock’s iShares, Vanguard, State Street Global Advisers, Deutsche Bank X-trackers and Invesco PowerShares.
While the best-known track major indices such as MSCI World, the S&P 500 and FTSE 100, you can also invest in specific countries or regions, large, medium or small companies, government bonds, gold, crude oil, cocoa, water, carbon, cattle, corn futures, currency shifts or even a stock market crash.
TO A LAND UNKNOWN
Director: Mahdi Fleifel
Starring: Mahmoud Bakri, Aram Sabbah, Mohammad Alsurafa
Rating: 4.5/5
500 People from Gaza enter France
115 Special programme for artists
25 Evacuation of injured and sick
What the law says
Micro-retirement is not a recognised concept or employment status under Federal Decree Law No. 33 of 2021 on the Regulation of Labour Relations (as amended) (UAE Labour Law). As such, it reflects a voluntary work-life balance practice, rather than a recognised legal employment category, according to Dilini Loku, senior associate for law firm Gateley Middle East.
“Some companies may offer formal sabbatical policies or career break programmes; however, beyond such arrangements, there is no automatic right or statutory entitlement to extended breaks,” she explains.
“Any leave taken beyond statutory entitlements, such as annual leave, is typically regarded as unpaid leave in accordance with Article 33 of the UAE Labour Law. While employees may legally take unpaid leave, such requests are subject to the employer’s discretion and require approval.”
If an employee resigns to pursue micro-retirement, the employment contract is terminated, and the employer is under no legal obligation to rehire the employee in the future unless specific contractual agreements are in place (such as return-to-work arrangements), which are generally uncommon, Ms Loku adds.
England squad
Moeen Ali, James Anderson, Jofra Archer, Jonny Bairstow, Dominic Bess, James Bracey, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Zak Crawley, Sam Curran, Joe Denly, Ben Foakes, Lewis Gregory, Keaton Jennings, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Saqib Mahmood, Craig Overton, Jamie Overton, Matthew Parkinson, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root, Dom Sibley, Ben Stokes, Olly Stone, Amar Virdi, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood
Usain Bolt's World Championships record
2007 Osaka
200m Silver
4x100m relay Silver
2009 Berlin
100m Gold
200m Gold
4x100m relay Gold
2011 Daegu
100m Disqualified in final for false start
200m Gold
4x100m relay Gold
2013 Moscow
100m Gold
200m Gold
4x100m relay Gold
2015 Beijing
100m Gold
200m Gold
4x100m relay Gold
Dhadak 2
Director: Shazia Iqbal
Starring: Siddhant Chaturvedi, Triptii Dimri
Rating: 1/5
Global Fungi Facts
• Scientists estimate there could be as many as 3 million fungal species globally
• Only about 160,000 have been officially described leaving around 90% undiscovered
• Fungi account for roughly 90% of Earth's unknown biodiversity
• Forest fungi help tackle climate change, absorbing up to 36% of global fossil fuel emissions annually and storing around 5 billion tonnes of carbon in the planet's topsoil
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FINAL RECKONING
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg
Rating: 4/5
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
