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Former India speedster Irfan Pathan made his Test debut in Australia when he was just 19, and the speedster immediately caught attention with his aggression, swing, and accuracy. Soon after his Test debut, Irfan was added into India's ODI setup and soon cemented his place across formats, even featuring in India’s first-ever T20I in 2006 against South Africa.
However, his promising campaign took an abrupt turn in 2009. Having already been sidelined from the Test side a year earlier, Irfan faced another major blow when he was dropped from the ODI setup after a series against Sri Lanka. He was out of the format for three years.
He was recalled into the squad in 2012 when the landscape of Indian fast bowling had shifted as new faces like Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ishant Sharma had staked their claim with consistent performances, making the competition tough for the Baroda-based pacer. Irfan managed to feature in 12 ODIs during his comeback before announcing his international retirement in 2020.
Five years after his retirement, Irfan opened up on the circumstances that led to his departure from the national team. The left-armer, who was handy with the bat in the lower order, too, revealed the reasoning he was given about being dropped, and how MS Dhoni, who was the Indian captain at the time, took the call to sideline the pacer.
“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 began as he narrated the story during a chat with TheLallantop.
“In New Zealand, I was benched for the first match, the second match, and the third match as well. The fourth match was a draw because of rain. I wasn’t in the final match either. Then I asked Gary sir why I had been dropped. If there was something I needed to improve, he could tell me, but I wanted to know the reason I was left out.”
Former South Africa cricketer Gary Kirsten, who was India's coach at that time and Irfan revealed how it became clear to him through the South African's explanation that Dhoni was involved in his being dropped.
“Kirsten gave me two reasons. He said, ‘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.
“The second answer was that they were looking for a batting all-rounder at No. 7. Fair enough — my brother was a batting all-rounder, while I was a bowling all-rounder. The two were different from each other, but there was only room for one in the team. Nowadays, if you ask whether two all-rounders are needed, people would gladly take both.”
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