After Virender Sehwag, Irfan Pathan has revealed that MS Dhoni was responsible for his removal from Team India. Irfan was 19 when he made his Test debut and the all-rounder soon became a regular member of the national squad across formats.

However, he was sidelined from the Test team in 2008 and was dropped from the ODI squad a year later. He was away from the fifty-over format for three years.

He was recalled in 2012 but was given just 12 ODIs as Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ishant Sharma have cemented their places.

Irfan has finally opened up on the matter. He mentioned that MS Dhoni took the call of dropping him.

“It happened in 2009, when we were playing in New Zealand. Before that, my brother (Yusuf Pathan) and I had won matches in Sri Lanka. We needed 60 runs from 27-38 balls and we won the game. If there was someone else in my place, he wouldn’t have been dropped for atleast one year,” Irfan Pathan told The Lallantop.

“I didn’t play a match in New Zealand. I asked Gary sir about the reasons behind my exclusion and if there was something I needed to work on to improve as a player,” he added.

Kirsten’s words confirmed that Dhoni was behind the call. “Kirsten didn’t took the name but I knew who was behind it. The captain decides Playing XI. I don’t want to discuss whether it was the right or wrong decision,” he mentioned.

“According to him, they were looking for a batting all-rounder at No.7 and I was a bowling all-rounder. My brother was a batting all-rounder. In today’s scenario, people would take both all-rounders,” he concluded.