Pathan keeps his promise to his ex-coach

Mumbai All-rounder Yusuf Pathan has become a household name after his stellar performance with both bat and ball in the just concluded Indian Premier League (IPL) but very few know that the man who made him a hard-hitting batsman was none other than former West Zone Cricket Academy coach and Test stumper Chandrakant Pandit.

"I am very happy with the way Yusuf has performed in the IPL and earned him a place in the Indian team. When I first saw Yusuf in the Academy he was basically a tail-end batsman but he could smack the ball really hard. I encouraged him to play his shots during the practice matches and I found him a very fast learner," Pandit told Cricketnext.com on Wednesday.

"In fact his real potential was realized for the first time when I made him to open batting for West Zone in the Deodhar Trophy limited overs tournament a couple of years ago where he scored three centuries. Since then he has never looked back. Initially he was a bit low on confidence. But with his IPL performance he will be more confident and I hope he does well playing for India," he added.

"In fact throughout the IPL tournament I was in touch with him and kept advising him to stay at the wicket more so that he could get a big score. In fact just before the final, I had a long chat with him and he promised me to stay at the wicket for long and see his team through and thankfully he kept his promise and saw his team through," Pandit pointed out.

Pandit was also closely associated with other players in the IPL like Robin Uthappa, Rohit Sharma and Swapnil Asnodkar during his stint as the batting coach of the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore and with Yogesh Takawale during his stint as the coach of the Maharashtra Ranji Trophy squad.

Despite Uthappa failed to live to his potential in the IPL, Pandit felt the Karnataka lad was highly talented.

"Uthappa is a very talented batsman but tends to get overconfident at times with his approach. This attitude has got him in a mess recently and he should stop getting excited on the field and only concentrate on the job on hand. I hope he understands this and tries to improve fast," Pandit said.

Pandit also had a piece of advice for Rohit Sharma, who played for the Deccan Chargers with distinction though his team ended up at the bottom of the table.

"Rohit is immensely talented but he should be more careful with his shot selection otherwise he will find it tough to establish himself in the longer versions of the game on international scene," he observed.

Speaking about Yusuf Pathan's teammate Asnodkar, Pandit said, he was ideally suited for the Twenty20 version but has to learn to play in the longer versions of the game.

"Asnodkar has been an attacking player all along since I came in contact with him during the Academy. But Twenty20 will not really test a player's ability and one should wait and see how he performs in the longer versions of the game before jumping to conclusions," Pandit said.