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Amjad Khan hopes some eye-catching performances for Sussex could lead to an England recall
Sussex new boy Amjad Khan has no regrets about moving from Kent and hopes it will be the springboard he needs to return to the international set-up.
The pace bowler’s solitary Test came in 2009 during England’s tour of the West Indies at the Queen’s Park Oval, where he failed to shine with match figures of 1-122.
He played an international Twenty20 soon after but has not been called upon since. However, Amjad has not been deterred and believes that a change of scenery will improve his chances of regaining an England place.
The 30-year-old, who spent 10 years with Kent, is also confident that his move to Hove, where he will lead the attack, will help to fulfil another ambition of winning domestic titles.
He told ecb.co.uk: “I think it was the right time to leave. I’m desperate to win trophies and I’m equally as desperate to get back into the England set-up.
“If you look at Sussex’s history, they’ve won God knows how many trophies in the last 10 years and they’ve produced a lot of England players, so it was a no-brainer to come here.
“There’s some new challenges here that there definitely wouldn’t have been at Kent and, as a person, that develops you, so it really is exciting.”
Amjad is at a loss to explain the reasons for Sussex’s innings-and-55-run defeat to Lancashire in the first match of their LV= County Championship campaign, but he is determined to see improvements when they take on Durham this week.
“I think we’re looking to win and can challenge in all forms of the game,” he said. “We’ve had a perfect start to pre-season, couldn’t have done anything differently, so there’s no excuse. I think we have to re-evaluate, figure out where it went wrong and then look forward."
Amjad is also full of praise for Sussex cricket manager Mark Robinson, who wants the Denmark-born bowler to show his pedigree in the sorter formats of the game as well as act as a mentor to the up-and-coming youngsters.
Amjad added: “Mark Robinson has been brilliant this winter and sort of said, ‘We want you to play all forms and we want you to lead the attack. Some of the younger guys, you’ve got to take under your wing and share your experience'. I’ve tried to do that and I think I’ve done pretty well.
“It shows that he backs you really and we worked on a lot of specific stuff this winter. I worked very closely with Mark Robinson, especially with the white ball stuff, bowling up front, bowling at the death, gameplans - so hopefully that can translate to good performances in one-day performances especially.”
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