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.
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.”
