At the beginning of February 2012, a spate of injuries forced the New York Knicks to promote a little-known basketball player called Jeremy Lin to their starting roster. Lin had looked as though he was destined for a career as a journeyman. He was struggling to make it to the big time. NBA teams had turned their backs on him until the Knicks were forced to give him a chance. Lin, who was struggling financially and sleeping on a friend’s couch, played well in his first match. And his second. And his third. He outscored his more illustrious team-mates. The struggling Knicks embarked on a winning streak. Harry Kane's meteoric rise continued on Friday when he marked his first England game with a goal . Kane headed in England's fourth against Lithuania shortly after replacing Wayne Rooney . Kane's progress is reminiscient of Jeremy Lin's form when he was playing basketball for the New York Knicks . Lin propelled the Knicks to a winning streak but failed to recapture his form after sustaining an injury . By the end of the first week, celebrities were flocking to courtside at Madison Square Garden to catch the buzz. Lin became a phenomenon and the mania that developed around him was given a name: Linsanity. It seemed then that Lin could never again return to ordinariness. But in mid-March, the coach who had given him his chance was fired and Lin sustained a knee injury that ended his season. He was traded to another team in the summer. They offloaded him to the struggling Los Angeles Lakers, where he has also failed to make an impact. He is known now only for his failure to sustain Linsanity. ‘I feel like I’m back to square one,’ he said last week. You get the point? Well, you would have done if you had been at Wembley on Friday night, heard the deafening, rumbling cheer that rolled around the stadium when Harry Kane ran on to make his England debut and witnessed the scenes when, 79 seconds later, he scored with a far-post header. This is English football’s Linsanity. In the middle of what is, in many ways, a fairly unremarkable domestic football season, we have become caught up in our very own intoxicating, uplifting kind of madness. ‘It’s nice when fairytales come true,’ said the England manager Roy Hodgson afterwards, beaming into the camera. Kane beamed, too. ‘It’s the start that I dreamed of,’ he said. The Lithuania manager, Igoris Pankratjevas, described the Spurs forward as a ‘sniper’. Even Wayne Rooney, whose limelight had been stolen by the 21-year-old, seemed a little breathless. ‘It’s incredible really,’ Rooney said of Kane’s impact. ‘You can feel the excitement all around the country.’ And so a kid who looked like he might be heading for a career in the lower divisions is suddenly taking our league, and now our national team, by storm. What is unfolding in front of us seems so wonderfully unlikely that it has reached the point where it is scarcely credible. Late on Friday night, the BBC displayed a map of the world showing where social media reaction to Kane’s goal had been at its height. The yellow dots showing maximum interaction were spread from England to Indonesia to Mexico to Japan and Brazil. Wayne Rooney (right) praised Kane's impact with Tottenham and now at international level . Kane wheels away to celebrate scoring for England against Lithuania at Wembley on Friday . Kane was sent on loan to a number of football league sides before breaking through to the Tottenham side . This is a kid who was shunted around the lower leagues to Leyton Orient, Millwall, Norwich and Leicester while Spurs tried to work out what to do with him and whether he was good enough to make the grade with them. This is a kid, an English kid, a local north London kid, whose meteoric rise has coincided with immigration leaping to the top of the political agenda and concerns about the proliferation of foreign players and owners in our leagues. When Spurs fans sing that Kane is ‘one of our own’, their boast represents not just a celebration of his talent but a lament for a time when they could identify more closely with the players they were watching. In an age where teams are being taken away from the fans, Kane represents a reconnection. The mania that has grown around him is a warning that there are those who harbour misgivings about the cosmopolitan make-up of the Premier League. Riding along on Kane’s coat-tails, FA chairman Greg Dyke has quickly and adroitly tapped into those fears and prejudices and seized the moment to propose that every Premier League club should have 12 home-grown players in its 25-man squad. Kane is at the centre of all this but as he walked triumphantly from the pitch on Friday night, the next question is how long can he maintain this trajectory? Is this his natural orbit, is he here to stay or is this, like Linsanity, some brief enchantment? The media, of course, is already being accused of building a kid up just so it can knock him down but Kane is fortunate that in his club boss, Mauricio Pochettino, and Hodgson, he has two managers who will shepherd him wisely. ‘We’re not going to hold him back,’ said Hodgson. ‘There’s no question of that. But on the other hand, I am rather hoping I have got Harry Kane for a long period to come and I don’t want to be the one who throws him in and he flies too close to the sun.’ Did the England manager give any thought to the idea that Kane might fall back into the shadows? ‘I suppose when someone has shone quite so brilliantly, that is always in the back of your mind,’ Hodgson said. ‘But I have got to say that from what I have seen of him, from what I know of the apprenticeship he has already served, when I look at the qualities he possesses as a football player, I have got no fears in that respect. I don’t believe it will happen. Roy Hodgson believes that Kane will be able to maintain his astonishing standard of form . Kane is in line to feature for England in a friendly against Italy in Turin on Tuesday . England manager Hodgson is pleased with how Kane is being handled at Tottenham by Mauricio Pochettino . ‘I still think it is prudent for Mauricio Pochettino and myself, as the England manager, not to stand here in front of you singing his praises. You are singing his praises enough, so just allow me to dampen them down a little bit.’ It probably won’t do much good. The Kane Train is setting off for Turin on Tuesday, full steam ahead. Whether this is all Linsanity or whether, as we all hope, it is something more substantial and lasting, we will soon find out.
Harry Kane scored on his England debut after 79 seconds on Friday . Kane's goal is another landmark in an incredible rise from the striker . He is set to feature in England's friendly against Italy on Tuesday .