For those twitched eyebrows on Irfan Pathan’s inclusion in the Champions Trophy squad, better check the bowling analysis of his previous ODI – 10-0-61-5. Not earth-shattering numbers, perhaps a touch too expensive, maybe a fluke, or a case of batsmen plotting their own dismissals in pursuit of quick runs.
However, factor in the playing conditions. The track was a typical sub-continental shirtfront, wherein the team that batted first had stomped their way to 294 and Sri Lanka’s titular bowler, Lasith Malinga, had bled 64 runs. Pathan dismissed the openers, among them the dangerous T Dilshan. He returned and accounted for the dangerous Jeevan Mendis, who seemed to take the match away from India, and the capable Thisara Perera in one over. In the next over, he snuffed the last ember of the team’s hope, Sachithra Senanayke, thus setting up a 20-run win.
But then struck the familiar injury twist to his career. An inopportune ankle injury laid him low for a month, and by the time he returned to full fitness, a few brazen youngsters had already secured bragging rights into the first-eleven. But undaunted, he persisted forth. “Obviously, the injury came at a critical time but once I recovered I kept working, focused on my basics and took it one match at a time,” he told TNIE.
Though his IPL returns weren’t exactly flattering, he knew he would be in the reckoning for the Champions Trophy. “I knew I was bowling well, though it didn’t exactly reflect on the scorecard. (TA) Sekar sir reckoned I was getting into the groove. Overall, I had the feel-good factor,” he said.
But more than anything else, it was his utility as a fast bowling all-rounder, a requisite for succeeding in English conditions, that fetched him the selectors’ approval. And he, more than anyone else, knows the significance of this series, more so with a handful of fledgling pacers breathing down his neck. “Of course, this time I won’t let it go. Everything is is God’s hands,” he said.
Recalled opener Murali Vijay’s destiny has been slightly different. For all his precocity in Tests and T20s, he hasn’t quite cracked the code in ODIs.
In 11 ODIs, he has churned out only 196 runs at a woeful strike-rate of 61.82. Then, if he demonstrates the same application as in his Test comeback, his 50-over career, too, would be treading the revival route.
