Former cricketers, Rajat Bhatia and Yusuf Pathan played with each other for Kolkata from 2011 to the 2013 edition of the Indian T20 League. Both were part of the 2012 title-winning campaign where they beat Chennai in the final. Bhatia was also known for his slower deliveries which troubled the batters during the middle overs. Pathan, on the other hand, was an explosive batter, who played a number of match-winning knocks for Rajasthan in the tournament.
He is fondly remembered for his 37-ball 100 in 2010 against Mumbai. However, there was a time when the 39-year-old was struggling to score runs in the cash-rich league. At that time, Bhatia said to Pathan that the latter was unaware of what he was capable of.
“You yourself don’t know what you’re capable of,’ Bhatia revealed the conversation during a chat with Sports Tiger while speaking in a mid-game show.
Yusuf Pathan, the right-hander has played in the cash-rich league from 2008 to 2019. He amassed 3204 runs in 174 games, averaging 29.13 and has played for three franchises, namely Rajasthan (2008-2010), Kolkata (2011-2017), and Hyderabad (2018-2019). For Kolkata, he has played 106 games and scored 1893 runs.
Notably, he was also part of the KKR’s 2014 title-winning campaign. In 2018, he was signed by Hyderabad. In the 2-year period with SRH, phase, he could only muster 300 runs. Subsequently, he was released by the 2016 winners ahead of the player retentions in late 2019.
In February 2021, he retired from the game and then played the World Road Safety Series in February that year. Notably, the tournament had started in 2020 but the arrival of COVID19 pandemic meant that the tournament was suspended for a further date.
From 2007 to 2011, he played for India in ODIs and T20Is and was part of the India’s T20 World Cup 2007 and 2011 ODI World Cup winning campaigns.
