My favorite cricketer is irfan pathan, I know there are lot of good cricketers, sachin, lara, ponting, but pathan remains my favorite right from the start of his career.
His real name is irfan khan, but when came to cricket he was known as irfan pathan, born in baroda india on october 27, 1984 he is a lefty, he bat and bowls lefty, Most of the cricketer in india team are left handers, yuvraj, ganguly, raina, gambhir, ashish nehra and you can pathan to the list of lefties also.
He made his international debut against australia in adelaide at the age of 19, following some good performances at the under 19 level pathan was picked for india’s 2003-2004 tour of australia and the 2004 tour of pakistan. Irfan does most of his work off seam at a useful pace off a side on action, his left handedness marks him out a natural danger to the right hander. He has had tips from best bowler in the world wasim akram.
In 24 test matches irfan has had 6 fifties in batting and has scored over 816 runs and played around 31 innings, and hid highest score is 93 against srilanka, and has taken 89 wickets in bowling, his best bowling remains 7/59 and in in odi’s he played 57 matches and scored over 800 runs and played 40 innings and his best is 83 in batting and has taken 99 wickets and best bowling is 5/27.
Irfan has taken a historic hattrick, in the first over in test cricket in the final test verses pakistan, he is the only player to take a hat trick in the first over, pathan had caught salman buutt at first slip by rahul dravid with sharp outswinger, then trapped younis khan with lbw with a sharp inswinger and bowled out mohammad yousif. This was pathan’s answer to javed miandad who in 2003 said that paakistan has bowlers like pathan in every street and corner.
He is developing into a fine all rounder under the new indian cricket coach greg chappel. Chappel has indentified a potential in pathan’s batting, with his fast bowlers physique pathan has the ability to strike the ball long and clean. You can use pathan in any order, He has been used as opener, or at number 7, and he had scored 83 runs against srilanka in 2005 in the odi. He has also made 90 runs against pakistan in the second test this year. He has won lot of man of the match awards.
In the recent matches against england pathan had scored a 50 in the second test match which india won, and took around 8 wickets in the 3 test matches averaged around 35 in batting.
In 2004 pathan was named the emerging player of the year at the icc awards and accepting this awars pathan paid tribute to his family members, friends and coaches. He beat pakistan players yaseer hamid by 75 votes. I think it’s wrong to compare him to kapil dev or wasim akram they were in their own league and pathan is in his own league, pathan will continue to do good job in taking wickets and he will son make a 1 hundred in odi and tests.
pathan’s hatrick in pakistan made indian’s proud, he had bowled with a lot of heart and soul. Pathan and dhoni are the future of indian cricket.
In the recent icc rankings pathan was at number 3 in all rounders n test cricket, jacque kallis being at number one