The Forgotten Warriors EP: 7
@IrfanPathan : The All-Rounder
Pak tour of India, Jamshedpur, 3rd ODI.
Pak : 319/9 in 50 overs.
Ind: 82/6 in 16.1 overs.
India suffocated on a pitch where Pak amassed 319 runs. The batsmen jumped, nicked, edged against the Opp. Pacers.

The scorecard soon became 7-143 as Kaif followed his teammates by giving a catch to Younus at point. Amidst the ruckus though there was one player ( @IrfanPathan) who was then compared to @wasimakramlive by the way he swung the ball.

He started with depositing Kaneria's leg spinners into the stand. In matter of few mins, @IrfanPathan had 4 sixes, 2 fours, and soon his1st ODI fifty. The Akramesque seamer suddenly became India's only hope of having a seam bowling AR who had a never say no attitude. ---Pt-1

Early Career
Pathan was part of U19 WC squad 2002 in which he took 6 wickets at an avg of 27. He was then selected in India's emerging player team in 2003 and then played the Asian Youth Championship where he was leading wicket taker as he took 18 wkts at an avg of 7.38.

The series included his 9/16 against Bangladesh that grabbed headlines and as a result he travelled to Aus along with the Indian team at the age of 19 and soon debuted.
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While his first match at the International areana wasn't the best one since he could only take..

..the wicket of @HaydosTweets. He also gave away 160 runs at ER of 5. He came back well in Sydney though where he dismissed likes of Waugh, @gilly381 and @RickyPonting to return with a match figure of 3/106.
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His ODI start was promising nevertheless as he was leading..

.. wicket-taker in the triseries that involved the host, Australia, and Zimbabwe. He took 16 wickets at an avg of 31.
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Best performances
His early success with the ball soon made him grow more confident as a batsman. In meantime, he became the first seam..

Bowler to take a hat-trick for India. The curly haired young kid was after all breaking the chains. His best period as a player was clearly from 2004-07 where he had some memorable performances for the team. 3 best were
Pathan 3-34 and 50 (61)
NZ 234, Ind 164.

Ind didn't win this encounter but this match surely turned out to be Pathan's career defining match. NZ won the toss and chose to bat first. NZ, however, were forced to think over it when Pathan bowled an inswinger to pin Vincent, and Marshall. Then Styris ventured..

.. out of the crease only to see his stumps shattered. In no time, NZ were 36/5, Pathan had 3.
Thanks, to NZ Allrounders, they did reach a respectable 234. Pitch, however, was spicy & NZ unleashed Bond. Ganguly, Rao, Dravid, Sehwag, Kaif. All gone. Ind 49/8. Pathan, Yadav..

.. together then stitched one of the best lower order fight back. Pathan did leave the pigeons in the NZ camp for a while before getting dismissed of Bond. The ease with which he played Bond and Vettori made sure India's search for AR is over.

2007, T20 WC final
3-16 in 4 overs. Ind 157/5, Pak 152
The high voltage matches against Pak brought the best out of @IrfanPathan. This one was no different. Having set 157, Ind started well by picking up some early wickets but a firing Nazir made sure Pak were in the game

In came @IrfanPathan who at first foxes Malik with a slower one and then bowls full and straight to get Afridi and Arafat. The wickets suck momentum out of Pak's chase and Ind eventually became the 1st WT20 champion. Pathan was adjourned MoM award for his efforts!

28 & 46, 5-117 in Perth 2008
This was sorts of a comeback match for Pathan. The match was special for 2 reasons- 1) It was played after the Sydney SAGA and 2) It turned out to be our only win at WACA. Pathan first fought it out for a score of 28 to make sure Ind post..

..a fighting 330 on the board.
Later, takes up the ball to set the stage by dismissing the openers for rampaging @rpsingh to take a 4-fer. He, then, enters into the 3rd innings as a night-watchman, by taking the bouncers to the chest & scores a fighting 46 that help Ind..

..post a target of 413.
He gets the business started again by dismissing the openers & later helping Ind dismiss Clark who was threatening to take the game away from Ind as he proves his mettle again. While he did have 1 , 5 50s, 9 5-fers, 2 10-fer..

.. on his name, the games came at a time when no one had expected it to come. He didn't say no to the situation, stood up against the opposition and never failed to show the fighting spirit in him yet has no 50-over WC game to show under his belt. Shocking!--Part-2-

Pathan's career via stats
@IrfanPathan became the spear-head, thanks to the injuries to @ImZaheer and Nehra, soon after joining the team. As the motion graph shows, Pathan took majority of the workload in 2004 by bowling 3435 balls in the yr. He avgd 25.4 (his best/yr).

The motion graph also highlights a record that Pathan bowled more than anyone for 3 consecutive years. A feat achieved by an Indian seamer in the last 30 years. However, from period 05-07, he was out-bowled by Zak (by 133 balls) but avgd 4th best among the Ind seamers.

However, in the seam bowling AR department, he was competing with the best in the business. He had bowled 3rd best in terms of balls bowled while avgng 24 with the bat at same time that was only behind @BrettLee_58 and @7polly7. Only Lee had better bowling avg than him.

In terms of Balls faced and Runs scored (04-07), Pathan was among the top 20 AR's even as a batsmen that included likes of Sachin and Yuvi. As a bowler, he was highest wkt taker among the ARs in the same period. His metric value (bat avg+bowl avg+SR+Wkts) was the best.(pic2)

Did Chappell spoil his career?
Simple Answer, NO. Statistically speaking, Pathan was neither overused as a batsmen nor under-used as a bowler under him. As said , @7polly7 was near equivalent to @IrfanPathan during his playing time so while comparing the bat/ball %..

@7polly7's workload was about 29% in the first five years, 26% in the next 9. Pathan's workload was touch high at 34% in Greg's tenure. Post 2008 though, he had just 25 odd games in 3 years to show. If ever there is a debate, Chappell-Dravid used him the best.

However, if anything that Dravid and Chappell go wrong was in not including him in the XI after testing him in every situation. Ind played with 4 openers when they would have loved a floater like Pathan in the batting order as seen. Pt-3
Conclusion
What went wrong?

Desire to increase speed, the workload from 04-07 as a bowler meant there were injuries that occured at wrong times. The on-off impacted capt's trust that meant despite taking a 5-fer and being the highest wkt-taker in his last series, he never played in the XI again. Thank u

Poor form, injuries aside @IrfanPathan showed mettle to play during the testing time. He would come bowl 20 overs in a day, open next day if the team wanted him to do. This episode is to highlight that very never say no attitude he had as an AR & sneak-peak on how the TM..

.. should handle seam bowling ARs. Nevertheless, a forgotten warrior he was indeed!. Hope you liked the thread. Please share your feedback.