Former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan has shared the story of being sidelined from ODIs by his captain, MS Dhoni, in 2009.

Pathan, though not questioning Dhoni’s decision, claimed that he was a match-winner at the time and producing performances that made him undroppable. He further stated that then head coach, Gary Kirsten, didn’t take Dhoni’s name either, and just told him that the call to not play the all-rounder was out of his hands.

Pathan’s revelation comes only a day after Virender Sehwag narrated the tale of his axing in 2008, again led by Dhoni. In Sehwag’s case, Sachin Tendulkar played a huge part in stopping him from retiring, and the opener took only a few months to stage a comeback.

However, Irfan stayed out of the team for next two years and by the time he was called back in 2011, the team had started utilizing younger options.

“My brother (Yusuf Pathan) and I had won matches in Sri Lanka. The situation in which we had pulled a win – if it had been anyone else in our place, they wouldn’t have been dropped for a year. In that match against Sri Lanka, we needed 60 runs from just 27–28 balls, and we won it from there," Pathan said in an interview with The Lallantop.

“In New Zealand, I was benched for the first match, the second match, and the third match as well. The fourth match was a draw because of rain. I wasn’t in the final match either. Then I asked Gary sir why I had been dropped. If there was something I needed to improve, he could tell me, but I wanted to know the reason I was left out."

“Kirsten gave me two reasons. He said, ‘There are things that are not in my hand.’ Those were Gary’s exact words. I asked whose hands it was in, but he didn’t tell me. I already knew whose hands it was in. The playing XI is decided by the captain’s choice. The decision rests with the captain, coach, and management. Dhoni was the captain at that time. I won’t get into whether that decision was right or wrong, because every captain has the right to run the team in his own way," Pathan added.

Irfan Pathan also lamented that all-rounders weren’t considerable valuable at that time as they considered now.

“The second answer was that they were looking for a batting all-rounder at No. 7. Fair enough — my brother was a batting all-rounder, while I was a bowling all-rounder. The two were different from each other, but there was only room for one in the team. Nowadays, if you ask whether two all-rounders are needed, people would gladly take both."

Irfan Pathan eventually ended his career with 120 ODI appearances, picking up 173 wickets and scoring over 1500 runs.