Rising up the ranks

But for the extra "a", there might have been a flurry of international interest in the fact that the captain of the South African Under-19 team to tour England next month is one Imraan Khan.

Like the great Pakistani, 19-year-old Imraan is an allrounder, albeit an offspinning one. He is no stranger to under-19 international cricket, as he visited New Zealand in 2000-01 and also played in last year's World Cup there.

Imraan, who was born in Durban, captained South African Schools in 2001, and made the leap to senior provincial level in the recently completed 2002-03 season, in which he played five limited-overs matches for KwaZulu-Natal.

He told Wisden CricInfo: "Our tour is important, because it's from ventures like this that you find your next generation of Test cricketers."

Surprisingly, perhaps, he was not named after the other Imran Khan, and he comes from a family that is more at home on the soccer pitch than the cricket field. Imraan is among a handful of cricketers of Asian origin who are making their mark in South African cricket at last. Their most senior member is Goolam Bodi, 24, the chinaman bowler and aggressive batsman who was born in Hathuran, a small village in the Indian state of Gujarat, before his family moved to South Africa.

Bodi represented South Africa Under-19s in England in 1997, and played in the 1998 Youth World Cup. His big break seemed to have come when, after impressing for KwaZulu-Natal, he was called up to replace the injured Nicky Boje in the one-day squad on South Africa's West Indian tour early in 2001. Sadly, before he could join the squad, he broke a finger on his bowling hand in a Lancashire League match. But the selectors have not forgotten him, and he was included in South Africa's provisional squad of 31 for the 2003 World Cup.

Also in that group was Hashim Amla, a top-order batsman of great promise who made his first-class debut for KwaZulu-Natal against England in 1999-2000. He toured New Zealand with the South African Under-19s in 2000-01, and captained South Africa at the last Under-19 World Cup in 2002.

The silkily skilled Amla, who's now 20, has cemented his place in the Natal XI, and in 16 first-class matches he has scored 980 runs at 42.60 with two centuries. Amla's older brother, Ahmed, made his first-class debut for Natal B two seasons before Hashim. Ahmed, also a batsman, has played 38 first-class matches, but did not have the most productive of campaigns this year. He was in the national under-19 team that toured Pakistan in 1998-99.

The other Asian-origin player in the England tour squad, Brendon Reddy, is a big-hitting medium-pacer from Easterns who also played in the 2002 Under-19 World Cup.