Published: Apr 18, 2011, 10:54 AM (IST)
Edited: Mar 21, 2014, 11:05 AM (IST)
By Angshuman Hazra
A relieved Irfan Pathan turned up for a post-match interview after Delhi Daredevils‘ close win over Pune Warriors in the Indian Premier League. They say Irfan lost confidence in his bowling, but whenever Irfan speaks, I see a confident and communicative young man, ready with intelligent and frank responses without having to be prodded. I saw that sparkling side of Irfan once again. I even see shades of the current Indian skipper when Irfan is in this mood. Try as I did, I could not match the bubbly guy I saw on Sunday with the general perception of people about him.
If Irfan shows decent returns in domestic cricket, then with his kind of abilities I cannot believe he can ever be a lesser preference to selectors than Ravindra Jadeja, Piyush Chawla and some of the others tried out recently. His middle overs bowling were key to India’s T20 World Cup final win in 2007. Currently, the Indian team needs a medium-quick bowling all-rounder for ODIs more than spin-bowling all-rounder. Yet, here we see Irfan, showing much fluency with the bat at No 3 and speaking brightly in T20 interviews while betraying no signs of returning to India colours. It would be interesting to see his response had the interviewer thrown that question.
Has Irfan Pathan lost interest in international cricket? Is he happy as he is today? Is he not keen any longer to make a comeback into the Indian team? I won’t dwell again into the twisted incentives that IPL paychecks present top T20 players. I have written about it earlier. He may even be going through genuine form issues. However, I find it difficult to accept years of lapse in bowling form for someone who just five years back only had to turn up at the bowling crease for the ball to start swinging.
The other intriguing aspect about his current IPL stint is that in spite of his moderate showing in previous IPL he fetched a staggering price as an all-rounder – a price that is normally reserved for ‘guaranteed performers’. In other words, top players in the world who excel in other formats too. There must be something in him that the IPL franchisees are seeing and investing in, but the selectors and Irfan himself seem to be unaware of it!
Strange, the way some truly promising careers shape up in this game…especially now that IPL adds a twist that was not seen till four years back.
PS: I have seen and read about the ‘Chappell effect’ on Irfan’s career. I am sure some of you would want to go back there. However, I have my reservations in even starting to discuss the argument that a major talent continues to be defocused four years after Chappell has left.
(Angshuman Hazra is a regular-turned-intermittent cricket blogger from the engineering profession. He loves to dwell between the little intriguing scripts revealed in passages of play and the amazingly unexpected stats thrown up by cricket from time to time. Once harbouring a dream of opening the bowling in whites for India, he still believes he can qualify for his department squad in office with a player pool of 13″)
