Kirsten Didn’t Take Names, I Knew Who Dropped Me: Irfan Pathan’s Another Jibe On Dhoni

Irfan Pathan and MS Dhoni have not been on the same pitch, and it is a well-known fact even as Pathan was someone who was instrumental in the latter winning his first ever World Cup during the T20 World Cup in 2007. Post that momentous feat, Pathan found it hard to keep his place in the national team. 

Now, after nearly 16 years since he was first dropped from the senior Indian men’s team, the left-arm all-rounder broke his silence, blaming Dhoni for his ouster for the first time. 

“It was back in 2009, when we were in New Zealand. Before that, my brother (Yusuf Pathan) and I won matches in Sri Lanka. The situation in which we had pulled off a win – if it had been anyone else in our place, they wouldn’t have been dropped for a year,” Pathan said in an interview to The Lallantop. 

“In that match against Sri Lanka, we needed 60 runs from just 27–28 balls, and we won it from there,” he added. 

However, against his claim of matches, the stats show that it was just one match that the duo won, which was played in Colombo. In that game, India needed 57 to win in 29 balls with the two brothers at the crease, and they won the game with four balls to spare, with Irfan hitting 33* off just 16 balls and Yusuf making 10-ball 22*. 

Continuing his claim of how he should not have been dropped after the heroics, Irfan said, “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.”

“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,” Pathan added, pointing to the captain of that series, Dhoni. 

“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,” said the 40-year-old. 

However, as per his claims, Dhoni should have played Irfan in ODIs, because of his performances in T20Is. But the fact is, Irfan’s last 10 ODI scores ahead of the New Zealand tour were- 8, 7, 5, 7, 2, 38*, 28, 18, 12, 22. This made his batting average 16, which is not at all ideal for someone calling himself a bowling all-rounder. 

In the same period, he had taken just 18 wickets, making it less than two wickets a game. He had no such impactful showing in the format to claim a return to the national side in that format. He did play in both the T20Is on the New Zealand tour though, and had scores of 12 and 15* and picked up two wickets in the second game, after going wicketless in the first. 

Thus, his claim that he was dropped from the Indian team after a strong showing in ODIs is not at all full proof.  

However, to strengthen his claim, the Baroda-born player even played the two all-rounder card. 

“They [India team] 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,” he said. 

But India did have a bowler who could bat, and it was Praveen Kumar, who was preferred over Pathan.