Monday, May 13

TMC Fields Yusuf Pathan Hoping To Run Out Congress’ Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury

Edited by Fathimathu Shana
TMC Fields Yusuf Pathan Hoping To Run Out Congress’ Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury (image@imyusufpathan)

Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister of West Bengal has announced the candidates list for all the 42 Lok Sabha seats of the state. TMC decided to filed high-profile figures including former cricketer Yusuf Pathan. The cricket veteran is contesting from Bahrampore Lok Sabha constituency of the Murshidabad district. Bahrampore has been the fort of Congress’ Adhir Ranjan Choudhary since 1999.

Yusuf Pathan thanked Mamata Banerjee for welcoming him to the “TMC family and trusting me with the responsibility to become people’s voice in the Parliament. As representatives of the people, it is our duty to uplift the poor and deprived, and that is what I hope to achieve”.

Pathan is the third player from the 2011 World Cup-winning Indian team to join politics. Earlier, Gautham Gambir and Harbajan Singh has also joined politics. Taking to X (formerly twitter), Pathan’s younger brother and cricketer Irfan Pathan said that he is confident in his brother will “truly make a difference in the daily lives of people”.

Yusuf Pathan was an all-rounder of Indian cricket team that won the 2007 ICC WT20 and 2001 ICC World Cup. The cricketer made name for himself during the Indian Premier League (IPL) while he played for Rajasthan Royals. Pathan also played for Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad. He helped Kolkata Knight Riders in winning trophy in 2012 and 2014.

Yusuf Pathan, the hard-hitting batsman and off spinner of the Indian cricket team was introduced to Indian cricket arena for the Baroda Under 16 team in the Vijay Merchant Trophy I 1999-2000. The extremely talented star quickly made up to the Baroda Under 19 and West Bengal Under 19 team. His debut into the first-class cricket during 2001-2002.

In 2017, Yusuf Pathan was charged with an anti-doping violation. Terbutaline was detected in his blood, following a domestic T20 match earlier that year. He was then awarded with a backdated 5 months suspension in 2015, which was deemed to start from August 15, the previous year. He was given the ban on January 8th of 2015, with only five days to serve for the suspension. The move came after BCCI was satisfied with Pathan’s answer that he has “taken terbutaline inadvertently to treat an Upper Respiratory Tract Infection (URTI) and not as a performance-enhancing drug”. BBCI also noted that Yousuf Pathan had previously underwent drug-test for five times without any “adverse analytical findings”.

Yusuf Pathan started a Cricket Academy For Pathans, which was jointly launched by his half-younger brother Irfan Pathan. The academy tied up with former Indian cricket coach Greg Chappel and Cameron Tradell as chief mentors.

In 2021, taking to his X account, Pathan announced his retirement. He said, “I still remember the day when I wore the India jersey for the first time. I didn’t only wear the jersey that day, but I took upon my family’s, coach’s, friends the whole country’s and my own expectations on my shoulders as well…winning two World Cups for India and lifting Sachin Tendulkar on my shoulders were some of the best moments of my career. I made my international debut under M S Dhoni, IPL debut under Shane Warne, Ranji debut under Jacob Martin and would like to thank them for believing in me”.