Irfan Pathan: A Journey Inspired by Wasim Akram
In early 2003, when a wiry left-arm quick from Baroda started bending the ball in alien conditions, India thought it had found its own Wasim Akram. Irfan Pathan arrived in Australia like a storm, and for a brief, heady period, it felt like he might never fade.
His Test debut came at the SCG. No gentle easing in, no quiet overs in the shadows. He knocked over Steve Waugh, then produced a reverse-swinging yorker to castle Adam Gilchrist – the sort of delivery you usually only saw from the great left-arm masters. In the ODI tri-series that followed, he grabbed 16 wickets in 10 matches, then carried that form into Pakistan, where he took eight more in three ODIs.
India already had Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra. With Pathan’s emergence, the attack suddenly looked complete. Same side-on action as Akram, sharp enough pace, and a rare gift for making the old ball talk. For a country that had long envied Pakistan’s fast-bowling riches, this felt like a turning point.
Learning from the original
Pathan didn’t just resemble Akram. He went straight to the source.
Wasim Akram, speaking on the 1 Mint podcast, recalled the first proper conversation between the two. It came in 2004, on Pathan’s first tour to Australia, when Akram was in the commentary box for ESPNStar.
“Irfan met me in 2004 on his first tour to Australia, I was commentating for ESPNStar. He was a big fan. Grew up watching us. I gave him a few tips here and there, but he did well early on in his career. His action was similar to mine from the very beginning,” Akram said.
The advice, he explained, was less about changing what Pathan did with his body and more about how he thought.
“But when players ask you about something, what you tell them is mostly about the mindset. Action and all is fine, because at that stage, you have reached that level where you’re representing the country. Things like wrist position and how to suss out a batsman. When to use variations, when not to. So yeah, it was good fun.”
Pathan took that knowledge into a role that would define him for several years: India’s new-ball spearhead, the bowler trusted to find swing when no one else could. Injuries, loss of rhythm and a new wave of Indian quicks eventually cut that journey shorter than many expected, but the impact lingered. He was Player of the Match in India’s T20 World Cup final win over Pakistan in 2007, a performance that still gets replayed whenever the rivalry is discussed.
He officially retired in 2020. The voice, though, never left the game. Pathan has become one of the most outspoken former India players, a regular in broadcast studios and a constant presence on social media.
Akram knows that side of him too.
“Irfan is a good boy; he still keeps meeting me. It’s a different thing that he keeps tweeting some or the other thing against Pakistan. But our fans are ready too. They don’t have the tendency to ignore either. They just have to reply,” he said, half amused, half resigned to the endless cross-border back-and-forth on X, formerly Twitter.
A bowler who relished the rivalry
Pathan’s numbers against Pakistan underline how much he enjoyed those contests. Across formats, he took 67 wickets in 36 internationals against them – 27 in Tests, 34 in ODIs and 6 in T20Is. For Indian fans, his very name is stitched to memories of early breakthroughs and big-match spells against the old rivals.
For Akram, who lived through the most intense years of India–Pakistan cricket, that rivalry remains unique. He has seen it from the inside – the pressure, the noise, the weight of history loaded onto a single game.
But he has also grown tired of what surrounds it.
‘It’s only a frikkin game’
Akram has long argued that the contest needs to be stripped of its excess baggage. The stadiums can stay full, the cricket can remain fierce. The rest, he believes, has gone too far.
“People have too much time. Why can’t they understand? It’s only a frikkin game. At the end of the day, it’s just a match. Somebody has to win, somebody has to lose. And move on to the next one,” he said on the podcast.
The noise today, he pointed out, feels as loud as it did in the 1990s, only now it’s supercharged by social media. Old grudges are recycled, old narratives reheated. The idea of “revenge” refuses to die.
“But no, what happened many moons ago still lingers. Revenge and all is so 1970. It’s the classic ‘an empty mind is a devil’s workshop, thought process,” he added, skewering the obsession with settling scores that exists far more in living rooms and timelines than in dressing rooms.
From the boy who once copied his action to the man who now debates Pakistan on X, Irfan Pathan’s journey has run alongside the evolution of the rivalry itself – from the middle of the pitch to the middle of everyone’s feed.
Akram’s reminder cuts through all that noise: for the players who share the ball and the handshake, it still begins and ends with cricket.
