Indian all-rounder Yusuf Pathan took to Twitter to express his nostalgia as he posted a newspaper cut-out about an article that gave information about him in his early playing days. Yusuf tweeted, “Found this article on me when I was just in my early days of cricket.”
Yusuf Pathan made his debut for India in the final of the 2007 T20 World Cup against Pakistan. He took the place of an injured Sehwag and showed glimpses of brilliance that was about to come later in his career. He became a sensation in the inaugural edition of the IPL for Rajasthan Royals, helping them win the coveted tournament. In that edition, Yusuf Pathan scored 435 runs in 15 innings at an impressive average of 31.07 and a strike rate of 179.01. That successful IPL season helped him break into the Indian ODI team and he became a mainstay in the team for a while with his explosive hitting and his handy off-spin bowling. He also became the part of the World-Cup winning team India in 2011.
Yusuf Pathan then moved on to the Kolkata Knight Riders and became a mainstay in their middle order, taking up the finisher’s role and played that role to perfection. KKR won two titles in 2012 and 2014 and Yusuf Pathan was one of the main reasons behind it. Yusuf Pathan was then sold to the Sunrisers Hyderabad and this is when things started to turn sour for him.
At Sunrisers Hyderabad, Yusuf Pathan had a very poor IPL 2018 and IPL 2019 seasons, with the last one being especially horrible. He scored just 40 runs from 10 games at a strike-rate below 90, something that was not common with Pathan’s style of play. Eventually, he went unsold in the IPL 2020 auction and no suitors for himself. He will be hopeful that a good domestic season would again bring him in the reckoning of the selectors as well of the IPL franchises.
