Irfan Pathan EXPOSES MS Dhoni!! Reveals his brutal axing without explanation, drags Gary Kirsten
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Former Indian cricketer Irfan Pathan has revealed how Gary Kirsten's words on dropping him from the ODI XI revealed that it was then-captain MS Dhoni's call not to have him in the side.
MS Dhoni took over the India captaincy from Rahul Dravid and led India to success like never before. He to date remains the only skipper in the World to have won all three ICC limited-overs tournaments and the only batter to have scored 10000+ international runs in ODIs coming lower than no. 6 in the batting order.
However, for such noticeable success, Dhoni had to sacrifice the happiness of many of his players and was also criticized from time to time for making several tough calls. His most controversial calls included the snub of Virender Sehwag and later all-rounder Irfan Pathan.
Irfan Pathan reveals Gary Kirsten's words confirmed MS Dhoni snubbed him from playing in the XI
Former Indian all-rounder Irfan Pathan has revealed that Gary Kirsten, the then coach of the Indian side, had explained to the former the reasons for his snub from the ODI series against New Zealand in 2009, and it seemed evident from his words that likely MS Dhoni had made the decision to drop him.
“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 the 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,” stated Irfan while speaking in a video of The Lallantop.
“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,” added Pathan.
Yusuf Pathan was picked over Irfan in the New Zealand ODI series
Despite being dropped, Irfan said that he did not have a grudge against MS Dhoni for not having picked him, even for one of the matches on the tour, and the reason for his unaltered attitude might be because he was replaced by his own brother, Yusuf Pathan, in the playing XI.
MS Dhoni was probably building a team for the next World Cup as he made several changes to the Indian lineup across different series played between 2009 and 2011.
“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,” remarked Irfan.
Irfan Pathan had an impactful stay in the Indian ODI side
The Indian left-arm speedster, paired alongside Zaheer Khan, was a deadly combo for the batters, as India once possessed the most left-arm pacers, which they lack nowadays. They had the likes of Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan, RP Singh, and Ashish Nehra, who were all quality left-arm seamers.
Pathan played for India from 2003 to 2012 and was earlier recognized as an expert pacer by Sourav Ganguly; however, Greg Chappell and later MS Dhoni exposed him to batting and promoted him up the order at times.
Pathan played 29 Tests for India and averaged 33.89 with the bat, scoring 1305 runs with one hundred and seven fifties, while also ending with 100 wickets. In his ODI career, he played in 120 games for India and scored 1544 runs while also picking 173 wickets with the ball.
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