In a major boost to the Kashmir bat Industry, a well-known Kashmiri willow brand has made its second appearance in Indian Premier League.
Khan International Sports (KIS) has made an appearance in the IPL for the second time. Earlier, a Bangladesh cricketer played with the bat manufactured by KIS and now a Afghanistan cricketer Fazal Haq Farooqi who plays for Sunrisers Hyderabad played with KIS Brand.
Firdous Ahmad Khan, owner of the brand, told news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), that his family was associated with the bat industry since the 1990s and were manufacturing bats that were sold to local players.
In 2017, he himself took over his unit namely “Khan International Sports” and started manufacturing cricket kit and promoting them at international level, he said.
“Our brand has been already accepted at international level as international players like Tajul Islam from Bangladesh, Shahzad Ahmad from Afghanistan and women cricketers from West Indies and Bangladesh have been using our brand,” he added.
Khan said that he started developing contacts in Meerut which is known as hub of cricket accessories and started a unit there for manufacturing accessories required for cricket. “We are bringing willow clefts from England for manufacturing of bats and other items,”.
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Later, Firdous started same work at his residence in Pujteng Sangam Anantnag as well and started promoting bats and other accessories at international level. “Most people working here are focusing on quantity not quality. That is why there was a need to manufacture quality bats and promote them at international level,” he said.
“We are in touch with well known international cricketers of cricketing nations. We are hopeful very soon prominent cricketers will be using our brand in international cricket,” Khan added.
He claimed that his brand is being used by most of J&K cricketers including Ranji cricketers.
He gave credit of his success to only international cricketer of Kashmir Parvez Rasool who has helped him in the promotion of his brand.
“Currently KIS has been receiving product queries from different countries and regularly products are being sent. There are around 50 persons working at this company most of them are locals and the company has been sponsoring over 100 talented cricketers of Kashmir,” Khan said.