The Afghan national cricket team player Rashid Khan has won the Associate Cricketer of the Year award of the International Cricket Council as the young Afghan cricketer has managed to attract global attention for his recent performances on the domestic and international level.
The International Cricket Council in a report said Thursday that Khan has been named as the winner of the award for his outstanding and historic performances during the year 2017.
According to the ICC report, Khan took 60 wickets in 2017 alone – a record for an Associate player in a calendar – and 43 in ODIs – another record for a player from outside the Full Member nations – making him a thoroughly deserved winner of the Associate Cricketer of the Year award.
With a bowling style reminiscent of Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi, Khan never gives batsmen a moment’s rest, with his fizzing googly his weapon of choice. He used it to devastating effect against West Indies last June, ripping through the hosts to claim a haul of 7/18 at St Lucia – the fourth-best figures in the history of ODI cricket, according to ICC.
The report also adds that we was similarly destructive against Ireland last March, taking 6/43 in the second ODI at Greater Noida after claiming the scarcely believable figures of 5/3 in a T20I versus the same opposition a week earlier.
Khan is also a more-than-useful batsman, with a batting average of 22.09 in 2017 and a strike rate of nearly a run a ball. He struck his second ODI half-century against Ireland last March, top scoring from No.9, the report states.
According to ICC, his superlative performances have caught the attention of T20 teams around the world and he has made a splash at the Indian Premier League and Big Bash League in Australia.
