On November 30 last year, he eclipsed Sri Lanka's Sanath Jayasuriya as the oldest to score an ODI century, making 132 not out aged 43 years and 162 days.
His elder brother, Ateeq, played first-class cricket so he joined his club.
"I was a left-arm spinner so I started getting wickets and scoring runs so I just kept going on and on."
Khan is is the oldest batsmen at the cup but doesn't look it. Does he feel old, though?
"No, I don't because if you're feeling 43 then I wouldn't be here," he said with a laugh only a few hours after the UAE arrived in Napier following their World Cup match against defending champions India in Perth on Saturday.
A composite of semi-professionals, UAE are last in Pool A but haven't given up hope of securing a maiden cup victory over neighbours Pakistan, who beat Zimbabwe for their first 2015 cup game in Brisbane on Sunday.
Khan is mindful cricket's tallest bowler, Mohammad Irfan, will extract prodigious bounce but feels it's equally vital to usher in the new balls.
"There's going to be two Kookaburra balls - one from each side - so you're going to have to see through the first 10 overs."
A left-arm orthodox spinner, Khan hasn't bowled in the cup because of an elbow injury but hopes to roll his arm tomorrow.
Losing to Zimbabwe in Nelson on February 19 hurt but Khan said they came away wiser. "You have to convert half-chances into full ones in international cricket to win."
The "more-than-normal" bounce at the Waca in Perth against India caught UAE on the hop in their heavy defeat.
"Even the spinner was getting more bounce," he said, but they expect more traction at McLean Park after playing warm-up games at Nelson Park in their build-up.
It doesn't faze Pakistan-born Khan, based in Dubai for 18 years, to be in a predominantly young squad.
"These youngsters drive me to do more so that's why I'm here."
He helps captain Mohammed Tauqir, who started playing before Khan came into the fray in 2001.
"To show them [young players] the way, you have to perform as well," says Khan who scored 585 runs in the cup qualifying stages, which was more than any other batsman in the tournament.
He harboured desires to play for his country of birth, too.
"When Imran Khan used to play I never missed a game and if he wasn't playing I used to say that's not a Pakistan team so he was definitely my idol and the reason why I started playing cricket."
Khurram's businessman father, Ishtiaq Khan, helped him overcome his fear by buying hard balls.
"I was 9 or 10 and we were five brothers so our cousins would join us in the weekends in this concrete courtyard with a hard ball."
A brother, who was working in UAE, invited him for a visit in 1999. The then 23-year-old was asked to play a game and the rest is history.
"I still remember I scored 100 not out, took a couple of catches and took wickets, so that was it, I've been living there since," says the cricketer who is married to Asma, with two young sons.
The Emirates flight purser suspected he was always on a collision course with Pakistan in international cricket.
It happened at the Hong Kong Sixes but tomorrow it will be his first ODI against Pakistan.
He puts his deceptively youthful looks down to a strict regime of diet and exercise that the team offers.
Khan loves playing cut shots but reveals with a wry smile that not too many cup bowlers have gifted him the room to do that.
"New Zealand feels like home for me so hopefully I'll perform here," says Khan, after the UAE based themselves here in January in their cup build-up.
