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Irfan Pathan
Irfan
Pathan is an Indian Cricket player who has been playing for the team since
the year 2003. Although primarily he is a Left-Arm Fast-Medium bowler,
over the period of time Irfan has evolved himself as a bowling allrounder.
Early Life
He was born on the 27th of October 1984
at
Baroda,
Gujrat. He was brought up along with his half-brother Yusuf Pathan, a yet
another Indian Cricket player. Although their family wanted them to become
Islamic priests, both the brothers got more interested towards the game of
Cricket.
Irfan was selected in the Under-14 Cricket teams of Baroda, and was a
member of the Under-15 Baroda team at a National Level Cricket
Championship. Afterwards, he made his debut in the First Class Cricket in
the year 2000-01. He got to improve his bowling skills at the MRF Pace
Foundation in Chennai, and took 6 wickets at the Under-19 Cricket World
Cup 2002 in New Zealand. The next year he was selected as a part of the
Indian A team and went to the tour of England.
In the year 2003 he managed to grab 18 wickets at an Under-19 Asian One
Day International (ODI) Cricket Tournament held in Pakistan, and had a
Bowling Average of 7.38 at the tournament.
Test and ODI Debut
Irfan Pathan began his Test Cricket career with a Test match against
Australia played at Adelaide Oval in the year 2003, when he was 19 years
of age. He didn’t fare quite well at the match though, claiming a single
wicket of Matthew Hayden, and giving away 160 runs in the match. His One
Day International (ODI) debut was made with a match against
Australia
in the Tri-Nation One Day International (ODI) Cricket tournament
comprising of India, Australia and Zimbabwe in the year 2004. In the
match, he took now wicket and gave away 61 runs.
Although in the whole tournament, he took 16 wickets with an average of
31. He also got his first Man of the Match award in this tournament in a
match against
Zimbabwe
wherein he took 4 wickets giving away only 24 runs. In the second final
match of this tournament, Irfan reportedly mocket the Australian batsman
Damien Martyn, and was reprimanded for this behavior by the match
referees.
Beginning of the year 2005 didn’t prove to be very good for Pathan, as on
the grounds of poor performance he was dropped out of the team, although
he was called back in the team for the Indian Oil Cup held in Sri Lanka in
August 2005, wherein he grabbed 6 wickets. After this, he gave is best ODI
performance in a match against
Zimbabwe
in the Videocon Triangular Series, in which he took 5 wickets and gave
only 27 runs.
Irfan Pathan as a batsman
Greg Chappell, the coach of Indian Cricket team at that time, utilized
Irfan Pathan as a useful batsman and he proved his caliber by scoring 83
runs in just 70 balls in an ODI against Sri Lanka played at Nagpur in the
Limited Overs Challenger Series 2005. In the Test Series against Sri
Lanka, he scored 93 runs in the 2nd Test, and 83 runs in the 3rd Test
match. The phase from late 2006 to mid 2007 was a bad one for Pathan, for
he was omitted out of both the Test and the ODI teams, and although was
included in the 2007 World Cup Cricket team from India, couldn’t play a
single match in the tournament as the team crashed out in the first round
itself.
The ICC Twenty-20 World Cup 2007
Hero
In the year 2007, Irfan Pathan came back with a bounce when he was
declared Man of the Match in the ICC Twenty-20 World Cup 2007 final match
against Pakistan. He took 3 wickets giving away 16 runs in the match.
Apart from showing average performance in some Test and ODI matches
afterwards, Irfan Pathan participated in the Indian Premiere League 2008
from the Kings XI Punjab team, and took 15 wickets giving away 350 runs at
an average of 23.33 runs. He also played in Kitply Cup and Asia Cup 2008,
and scored 86 runs and took 7 wickets in the tournaments.
Overall Performance
In his overall Test Cricket career, Irfan Pathan played 29 Test matches in
which he scored a total of 1105 runs with average of 31.57 runs, and
highest score of 102 runs. In these matches, he took 3226 runs and took
100 wickets at an average of 32.26 runs.
Whereas in the ODI Cricket, he played 107 matches and scored 1368 runs
with an average of 22.8 runs and made a highest score of 83 runs. He took
a total of 152 wickets in the ODIs and gave away 4547 runs with an average
of 29.91 runs.
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