Irfan Pathan retires: Harsha Bhogle bids farewell to the 'wide-eyed young man' he once met

As former Indian all-rounder, Irfan Pathan bid adieu to all forms of international cricket after having played his last game for the country in 2012. the cricketing fraternity qued up to congratulate Pathan fora glorious career, Irfan Pathan bid farewell to his international career in Saturday in a special program aired by the broadcasters. The Baroda-lad who is the first and only bowler to bag a hat-trick in the first over of the match has helped the team out of tricky situations, on numerous occasions. In fact, apart from Pathan's bowling abilities, he also starred with the bat as several occasion as he amassed 1544 runs off the 87 innings that he played in One Day Internationals. 

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Harsha Bhogle congratulates Pathan

Indian commentator and analyst Harsha Bhogle took to Twitter to congratulate Irfan Pathan on his glorious career and wished him luck for his future. Recalling the achievements of Irfan Pathan for the Men in Blue, Harsha Bhogle pointed out that the all-rounder had many memorable landmarks in his career and revealed the remembered the wide-eyed boy on the breakfast table in Australia who went on to play a key role for the team. Harsha Bhogle signed off by saying that he was looking forward to watching Irfan Pathan begin his second innings as a commentator and said in Hindi that the talk was with the ball until now & that it will be the lips doing the talking soon. 

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Irfan Pathan's cricketing career

Irfan Pathan has represented India in 29 Tests, 102 One Day Internationals and 24 T20Is from 2003 to 2012. In his cricketing career which lasted for almost a decade, Pathan was a part of many of India's famous triumphs which include the historic tour of Pakistan in 2003-04, ICC World T20 2007, the Australian tri-series in 2007-08, ICC Champions Trophy 2013, etc. He had played his last international match against South Africa in the ICC World T20 2012.  

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Even though the veteran pacer was selected in the 2013 Champions Trophy squad, he did not feature in a single game as the Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led side went on to win the tournament without tasting a defeat. This was also the last time that Pathan would feature in the Indian squad. 

The Baroda cricketer has represented six teams in the Indian Premier League (IPL). He had played for Kings XI Punjab from 2008 to 2010 after which he was roped in by the now-defunct Delhi Daredevils where he had played from 2011-2013. In 2014 and 2015, he represented Sunrisers Hyderabad and Chennai Super Kings and then went on to represent the now-defunct franchises Rising Pune Supergiant and Gujarat Lions in 2016 and 2017 respectively. 

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