Yusuf Pathan's repuatation is back in the T20 squad.

It’s just that his reputation doesn’t play too well. Yusuf’s reputation has the attention span of a child. Face it, children prefer toys, and even if it’s cricket, they’re better off with a plastic bat and a soft ball.

Often I have seen Yusuf’s attention span waver mid way through a bowler’s run-up. Make that mid way through a spinner’s run up. It could be imaginary seagulls in landlocked Mohali that he once saw in Adelaide or sepia coloured childhood scenes of Irfan and him knocking the ball out of Baroda.

Writing about Yusuf challenges my attention span too. It’s the nature of the, yeah, something like that.

But I will say this, today, playing for Baroda, in some Ranji game, which was just not worth his while, he lasted a full fourteen deliveries. Or maybe he lasted thirteen, and got out on the fourteenth. His strike rate was a lowly 100. Earlier in the piece 100 runs were scored of his bowling. And though he did account for that vet Sunil Joshi’s wicket, it was his reputation that shaped Irfan’s knock off 52 of 50. Irfan knocked off two top order batsmen, but what the heck – he doesn’t have a reputation.

Unfortunately, Yusuf didn’t make the ODI squad. No more ducks for him.

On Bored: More and less of Yusuf Pathan