As the saying goes, those who live by the sword, die by the sword. Yusuf Pathan — one of the most exciting players with the talent of hitting the ball to long distances — is a good example of that. It was his hard-hitting style of batting that helped the Baroda all-rounder rise to prominence with a spot in the national team and, ultimately, it was the same quality that led to his downfall as he was dropped from the team for not living up to the expectations.
The lack of consistency made his aggressive batting look reckless and the fall in the performance graph stopped only when he was dropped from the team. It’s been close to three years since then and he is yet to find consistency. But Pathan still insists that there is no need to change his game as he is a different kind of player. “No, I don’t think there is a need to change anything in my batting style,” Pathan, who is in Delhi for a Ranji Trophy game against Railways, said on Thursday. “(In this match also) If I would have got out while playing an attacking shot, I wouldn’t have felt bad (laughs)!
“The attacking game I play, it makes opposition bowlers and team afraid of me; they feel if he doesn’t get out, he will take the match away from us. So, I don’t have to worry about that. My team has always benefited from my attacking game. I have helped my team in difficult situations. And it’s not like that you can’t attack in four-day games. If I am scoring runs with my attacking game, I need to back myself for that. And I want to work on that,” he added.
In the last three years, India have tried several young all-rounders and some of them have shown promise for the future. However, Pathan, 32, still harbours hopes of make a comeback in the national team. “You just need to perform. Nothing is impossible. I am confident and my job is to perform. Times change and hopefully I will make a comeback,” Pathan said.
“If I do well — bat well and bowl well — then I don’t have to worry about others. My job is to perform. It’s the job of selectors and team management to see what they want. “It’s very difficult to score a century at No. 7 (105 against South Africa at Centurion in 2011) and I have done that in difficult conditions. So my role is different. I am a different kind of player. I don’t have to think much. God has given me a gift and I just have to back it. Selectors need to think about how they want to use me,” Pathan, the gentle-giant, said.