Indian all rounder, Irfan pathan, has said that playing in the Ranji Trophy helped him a lot in regaining his form. Pathan played for Baroda in the last season of Ranji Trophy and bowled well. Due to his brilliant performances in the Ranji Trophy, Pathan made a comeback in the national side after 2 years in December 2011. But, he wasn’t able to perform that well on the Australia tour. So, he was not named in the original squad for the ODI series against Sri Lanka. But, due to the injury of Vinay Kumar, he got an opportunity and he grabbed the opportunity with both hands. He performed brilliantly on the Sri Lanka tour both with the bat and the ball.
Pathan played in all the five ODI matches. In the third ODI match, Pathan built a match winning partnership of 92 runs with Suresh Raina for the sixth wicket. He himself made 34 valuable runs and took India to victory. In the fifth match, he again contributed with the bat and added 77 runs for the 7th wicket with the skipper, Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Pathan scored 29 runs and remained unbeaten. In the same match, he bowled brilliantly and sent five Sri Lankan batsmen to the pavilion. He was named as the man of the match in the fifth ODI. Pathan carried on his good form in the T20 match as well and took three important Sri Lankan wickets in the match.
After returning from Sri Lanka, Pathan said that it was not easy to make a comeback in the national side. He is grateful to the selectors for giving him a chance on the Sri Lanka tour. As per Pathan, he has worked very hard on his bowling in the last one year and he is very happy to bowl well again at the international level.