Irfan Pathan - Performance watch thread

[Crookbond]

TA Sekar on Irfan Pathan http://www.clt20.com/news/2012/interviews/1024/ta-sekar-analyses-daredevils-bowling

Irfan Pathan: He is a very natural and a very intelligent cricketer. His strength is swinging the ball at a good speed. He cannot reduce the speed. I donÃÕ believe in reducing the speed to swing the ball. If you want to play international cricket, you should be around 135kph and if you swing the ball, you become more difficult. Even the best batsmen in the world find it very difficult to play swing. They can play fast bowling, but swing and speed [together] is going to be a very difficult [combination to negotiate for batsmen]. Irfan should concentrate on his swing and bowling in the right areas at a reasonably good speed 132-135kph. And his batting is good. In my opinion, he is the only all-rounder in India as of now. He can bowl and bat and win a match for the country. I have been working with Irfan since 2002 and he was a young Under-15 bowler. I know Irfan very well. Even in 2007 when he made a comeback into the Indian team, I was working with him and since then I have been in constant touch with Irfan and that has helped me build his confidence.

[Old guy]

cant we make this guy selector?

[MCcricket]

Irfan Pathan is ready for test's, he can take over the mantle from Zak, also he will bowl 132 to 140 k in test's now, is fit and will do well with the new and old red ball,Zak can be played selectively, with supporting cast's including Umesh, Ishant, Aaron,Shami, even at the risk of getting flack I think if selectors and coach has a serious talk with Munaf , he can be an asset on away tours, especially with no options and VK, PK, Dinda being poor.

[Sooda]

Im not sure he is good enough a bowler to be in a four man attack. as an all rounder maybe. And even that vs a relatively weaker side at home playing two spinners and Irfan as 3rd paceman. And even there there are question marks around how good our wk bat is at tests