Falling down

Siddhartha Vaidyanathan

Irfan Pathan, once the darling of the masses, is slipping into a rut © Getty Images

Exactly 30 months after he made his Test debut on December 12 of 2003 in that unforgettable battle at Adelaide, Irfan Pathan, for a brief five overs, reminded us of his potential. On an insipid pitch in picturesque Gros Islet, with the sun beating down and West Indies on the defensive, he ran in hard, generated some pace, found some swing, rediscovered his yorker, and dismissed Shivnarine Chanderpaul.

Under normal circumstances, one wouldn't remember the spell (5-2-8-1); it was of the sort a bowler is routinely expected to deliver at Test level. But these aren't normal times for Pathan. His bumpy journey - from fast-medium to swing to medium to military - has prompted a range of reactions. Some are plain aghast, some insist it's just a bad patch, while others say he has sacrificed his bowling for his batting.

There's a school of thought that suggests that his bowling was hyped in the first place. This theory, aired by certain observers close to the team, goes somewhat along these lines: Pathan burst onto the scene with a certain exotic charm - given that left-arm bowlers who could curve the ball either way were usually born on the other side of the border. He possessed a good bouncer and a delightful yorker, both of which helped him make an impact in his first two series. Hardly had a beginning been made than a pedestal was erected. Pathan was soon found out in his second season. Ever since that October 2004 afternoon in Bangalore when he consistently clocked close to 85mph in demanding conditions against Australia, his average speed has taken a gradual dip. He still remains a potent weapon when the atmospheric conditions assist, or when he is bowling to leaden-footed minnows, but the threat has diminished, no doubt. Maybe he's simply someone whose limitations we need to understand. Instead of expecting him to be India's answer to Wasim Akram, it would have been more fitting if we had thought of him as the next Chaminda Vaas.

Pathan, if we are to believe some insiders, is quite confused at the moment. Receiving advice from various quarters - Imran Khan, Michael Holding, Wasim Akram, Andy Roberts - has its own pitfalls. "Pathan hasn't understood his own game yet," a source close to the team analysed, "and it becomes difficult for him to filter out what to do and what not to, especially when it comes from such great players. Ultimately, he ends up trying too much."

He has fallen into such a trap earlier. In August last year, he told Cricinfo.com: "After the Pakistan trip [in 2004] I was surrounded by a lot of hype and whenever I was praised, I worked harder by putting in extra hours at the gym... despite the caution of the physio and trainer of not overdoing things, I went and worked harder in the gym." The upshot was a side strain that ruled him out of action for 20 days.

When one watches Pathan bowl these days, it's pretty obvious that he's experimenting. On the first day of the tour game against Antigua and Barbuda, he appeared to be halting in his follow-through after delivering the ball. The rhythm was gone, and the local batsmen duly feasted. In his second spell, he tried one short ball too many and saw most of them sit up, begging to be pulled.

Greg Chappell, addressing the press at the end of the day, said he was "maybe looking for pace". Rudi Webster, the well known sports psychologist who spent time with the side, observed Pathan and said he could "feel his lack of confidence". Worryingly, there have allegedly been snide remarks from some of his team-mates, about him being the coach's favourite. It leaves him in no-man's land, with a plateful of problems to sort out.

In the second Test at St Lucia - the only one of the first three Tests he played - he appeared to be looking desperately for swing, bowling outside off and trying to make it move away. The ball didn't do much and Chris Gayle didn't miss out. "A bowler like Kapil Dev could afford to do that because he could deliver that natural outswinger in any conditions," the source quoted above said, "Irfan's immediate challenge lies in understanding his limitations and learning how to still be a good bowler."

Interestingly, in the middle of this decline as a frontline bowler, Pathan the batsman has thrived. Apart from No. 4, he's batted in every single position in one-dayers (in Tests he's missed out on Nos. 5 and 6). He has regularly shouldered the burden at the top of the order and, occasionally done spectacularly well. Those who speak about his ability to work at his game say that he spends a lot of time on his batting. Has his batting affected his bowling? Has he, unwittingly, sacrificed his primary suit? First he was the next Akram, then the next Kapil, but as things stood before the final Test at Jamaica, Pathan was India's fifth-choice bowler and second-choice No. 7.

Siddhartha Vaidyanathan is an assistant editor at Cricinfo

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