Interview with Aasif Karim: Hopefully my son will play in IPL one day

A recent documentary chronicles the life and career of former Kenyan cricketer, Aasif Karim

Asif Karim remains one of only 3 players to have played the Davis Cup and international cricket. The two other men to do the same are- India's Cotar Ramaswami and Ralph Legall of Trinidad (West Indies). A tennis scholar from the Palm Beach Community College in USA, Karim is best remembered for coming out of retirement at the age of 39 in the 2003 cricket world cup and returning brilliant figures of 8.2-6-7-3 against Australia. Currently trying to promote a documentary based on his family, Karim talks about sports in Kenya, his development as a cricketer and a lot more in an exclusive tete-a-tete with SportsKeeda.

Excerpts:

Tell us a little more about your documentary.

“The Karims – A Sporting Dynasty” is a biography based on our family in Mombasa, spanning over 90 years and is written and directed by Amit Tyagi, an Indian filmmaker. It traces the story of my forefathers’, about their arrival in Kenya in 1928 and brings the plot to the current day, when my son Irfan became the latest Karim to represent Kenya. In between, it talks about my father, who was the national tennis champion, and my appearance at three ICC world cups.

Sounds like a brilliant watch, when exactly did you start working on it?

To be honest, I was planning a coffee table book for quite some time till Amit came up with the idea of the making a documentary. That was almost three years ago, but we managed to do our research and came up with the finished product, which according to me, has been beautifully made by Amit and his team. Through this two-hour-long feature, he has managed to put together my family’s initial struggles to days of our sporting stardom. More importantly, it also talks about my family and our lives outside the playing arena.

If we leave the documentary aside, how would you analyze the current cricketing structure in Kenya?

AK: To be honest, it’s not good at all. You see, after reaching the semi-finals in the 2003 world cup, we expected a phase of optimism as far as cricket was concerned. But that didn’t happen. The team has failed to find replacements for senior players like Odumbe, Tikolo and myself. And the poor structure for domestic cricket is to be blamed for this. We still have amateur clubs and the game itself is seen mostly as a hobby.

There was a time when we had players such as Sandeep Patil and Chandrakant Pandit playing in our league and that gave us an impetus to perform better. Unfortunately, that’s not the case anymore, the team hardly plays outside the customary ICC Associate tournaments and that has led to mediocrity overall. I remember Andhra Pradesh touring Kenya sometime back and they ended up walloping our bowlers throughout the entire series. Clearly exposure can only help if the team attains a certain level itself.

A few years back, your son became only the sixth Kenyan to score a century in ODI’s. How does it feel to see the Karim legacy being taken forward?

Yes, he has been shaping up pretty well. He completed his masters in sports science from the University of Loughborough has had a good start to his international career, but I want him to train harder and take his game to the next level. Hopefully, he will get picked by IPL team someday!