“You have been a champion”: Irfan Pathan opines on Yusuf Pathan’s retirement from all formats

Irfan Pathan opines on Yusuf Pathan’s retirement: Yusuf Pathan has followed the footsteps of R Vinay Kumar to announce his retirement today.

India batsman Yusuf Pathan has announced retirement from all formats to end a two-decade long competitive career. Pathan, 38, took to social media platform Twitter to share the development with one and all.

Having made his national debut during the final match of ICC World Twenty20 2007, Pathan has retired as a two-time World Cup-winning player. Pathan, who last played for India during the tour of South Africa in 2012, will be remembered as hard-hitting batsman who had a reputation of changing the course of matches on his own.

Having played at the highest level for half-a-decade, Pathan scored 1,046 runs in 79 white-ball matches at an average and strike rate of 24.32 and 119.67 including having two centuries and three half-centuries to his name.

A bonafide Indian Premier League prospect, Pathan represented Rajasthan Royals, Kolkata Knight Riders and SunRisers Hyderabad in his 12-year long IPL career. In 74 IPL T20s, Pathan’s 3,204 runs had come at an average and strike rate of 29.13 and 142.97 respectively.

With his younger brother Irfan Pathan, Yusuf registered a rare brother-duo to play for India. It was in eight ODIs and T20Is each that both the Pathans were part of the Indian Playing XI.

It was only in his second T20I that Yusuf had shared a match-winning 59-run partnership with Irfan to seal a 172-run chase against Sri Lanka in Colombo. In addition to this, the right-hand batsman will be remembered for scoring swashbuckling centuries against New Zealand and South Africa in Bengaluru and Centurion respectively.

After pacer R Vinay Kumar, Yusuf became the second Indian player to announce his retirement today. It is worth mentioning that both the players had represented India together in two ODIs and five T20Is.

Irfan Pathan opines on Yusuf Pathan’s retirement from all formats

Irfan, who had announced his retirement from all formats last year, took to social media platform Twitter to laud his “champion” brother. “You have been a champion player Lala. Bowlers use to fear bowling to you,” tweeted Irfan Pathan.

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