Yusuf Pathan

Yusuf Khan Pathan(born 17 November 1982 in Baroda) is an Indian cricketer. Pathan made his debut in first-class cricket in 2001/02. He is a powerful and aggressiveright-handed batsman and a right-arm offbreak bowler. His brother Irfan Pathan is also an Indian cricketer. Though younger than Yusuf, it was Irfan who entered the Indian team first.

Career

Following his impressive performances in the 2007 Deodhar Trophy and the Inter-state domestic Twenty20 competition held in April 2007, Pathan was made a part of the Indian squad for the inaugural Twenty20 World Championship, held in South Africa in September 2007. He made his Twenty20 international debut in the final against Pakistan. He opened the batting for India in the match, and scored 15 runs in the process.

After a good domestic season in 2007/08, he was signed by the Rajasthan Royals in theIndian Premier League for USD 475,000 (INR 1.9 crore). In the 2008 IPL season, he scored 435 runs and took 8 wickets. He recorded the season's fastest half century (from 21 balls) against the Deccan Chargers, and was also the Man of the Match in the final against the Chennai Super Kings.

Following his good showing in the IPL, he was selected for the Indian one-day team. After the IPL though he played all the games in the Kitply Cup and Asia Cup he got to bat only four times. He could not perform very well with the bat and the ball in the Asia Cup and in the Kitply Cup and so he wasn't selected for the Series.against Sri Lanka. He performed well in domestic circuit and impressed the selectors and was selected for the England ODI series in November. He scored a fifty off just 29 balls in the second ODI against England inIndore, on his 26th birthday.^[2]

Yusuf had made his One-Day International debut for India against Pakistan at Dhaka on 10 June 2008. He became a regular feature of the national One-Day International team, but has yet to make his test debut.

Even though Pathan could not repeat his first IPL performance in the second season, he was selected in the Indian team to play the 2009 ICC World Twenty20 championships in England. In the second of the Super 8 matches of India, he made an unbeaten 33 from 17 balls against England, despite his team losing the game and crashing out of the tournament before the semi-finals.

In late-2009, Pathan was dropped from the limited overs team after a series of unproductive performances and the allrounder's position was taken over by Ravindra Jadeja.

In the final of the 2010 Duleep Trophy cricket tournament, Pathan scored a hundred in the first innings and a double hundred in the second and led his team West Zone to a three wicket win over South Zone. Pathan made 108 in the first innings and an unbeaten 210 from 190 balls in the second innings. This became a world record in cricket for the highest successful run chase in first class cricket history.

On 13 March 2010, Pathan scored a century off 37 balls, in an Indian Premier Leaguematch against Mumbai Indians. The innings also included record 11 consecutive hits to the boundary (6, 6, 6, 6, 4, 4, 6, 4, 4, 4, 4).

On 7 December 2010 Pathan magic seals win for India. Pathan clobbered the New Zealand attack with his aggressive innings, Yusuf Pathan smashed an unbeaten 123 from 96 balls and shared an unbroken 133-run partnership with Saurabh Tiwary to guide India to a huge target of 316 with seven balls to spare and give the hosts a 4-0 lead in the series.He was named man of the match. The all-rounder clubbed seven fours and seven sixes on the way to his maiden one-day century to help the hosts overhaul New Zealand's challenging 315-7 with seven balls to spare at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore.

At the awards distribution ceremony he stated that "this knock will boost my career".. Indian captain Gautam Gambhir said "I have always said Pathan can finish games on his own, and that's what he did today," "I had never seen something like this before. But I knew till the time Pathan was there, we would win the game."

New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori said "It was a great game of cricket," "We were in the game, but Pathan was pretty amazing and took the game away from us."

In the 2011 IPL auction, he was bought for $2.1 million by Kolkata Knight Riders.

In the MTN ODI series against South Africa before the 2011 World Cup, he gave a stand out performance in a match against South Africa in Pretoria where he scored a brilliant 105 in 70 deliveries (comprising 8 fours and 8 sixes), even though India lost the match, his performance was complimented heavily. During this knock, he reached his century off 68 balls which is the sixth fastest by an Indian and the second fastest by an Indian outside the subcontinent. His batting performance during the entire series has elevated his chance to be part of the playing XI for India in the upcoming World Cup.

International Centuries

One Day International Centuries

• In the column Runs, * indicates being not out
• The column title Match refers to the Match Number of the player's career

One Day International Centuries of YK Pathan

	Runs	Match	Against	City/Country	Venue	Year
[1]	123*	41	New Zealand	Bangalore, India	M Chinnaswamy Stadium	2010
[2]	105	45	South Africa	Centurion, South Africa	SuperSport Park	2011

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