The 40-year-old player played a total of 29 Test matches, picking up 100 wickets.
Former India cricketer Irfan Pathan had a great start to his international career as he made his Test debut at the age of 19. The kind of swing and accuracy he had was just phenomenal.
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Soon, he started playing both the red and white ball formats for the Indian team. But then in 2009, things went haywire for him as he was sidelined from the Test side. Soon, he was dropped from the ODI setup, too. It was back in 2012 when he made a comeback to the Indian team, but then the likes of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ishant Sharma started making waves. Irfan managed to feature in only 12 more ODIs in that comeback.
Eventually, the left arm pacer announced his retirement in 2020. The 40-year-old player played a total of 29 Test matches, picking up 100 wickets. Irfan also took part in 120 ODI matches, where he scalped 173 wickets.
In a conversation with The Lallantop, the former India player spoke about the circumstances that resulted in his departure from the national team.
“It was back in 2009, when we were in New Zealand. Before that, my brother (Yusuf Pathan) and I had won matches in Sri Lanka. The situation in which we had pulled a win – if it had been anyone else in our place, they wouldn’t have been dropped for a year. In that match against Sri Lanka, we needed 60 runs from just 27–28 balls, and we won it from there,” Irfan said.
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The former Indian pacer also stated that when he was dropped from the Indian team, Gary Kirsten was the coach. He also revealed that since MS Dhoni was the skipper at that time, his involvement was also there in his being dropped.
“‘There are things that are not in my hand.’ Those were Gary’s exact words. I asked whose hands it was in, but he didn’t tell me. I already knew whose hands it was in. The playing XI is decided by the captain’s choice. The decision rests with the captain, coach, and management. Dhoni was the captain at that time. I won’t get into whether that decision was right or wrong, because every captain has the right to run the team in his own way,” Pathan said.
Irfan was a part of the winning Indian team at the inaugural ICC T20 World Cup in 2007 and was also named the Player of the Match in the final. He also holds the feat of being the ninth youngest bowler to take 10 wickets in a Test match.
