MS. Dhoni was in the news over the weekend when The Telegraph broke the news about his argument with the selectors. The selectors had replaced R.P. Singh with Irfan Pathan when Dhoni wanted R.P. Singh to be given a longer run. Gossip had it that the captain was so angry that he offered to resign.

Now, in any argument that features Yashpal Sharma on one side and Dhoni on the other, I know which side I’m on. But in this instance, I feel torn. One, because Srikkanth and Co. have done very well in their first outing as selectors. Srikkanth reversed the outgoing selection committee’s decision to drop Ganguly for the Test series against the Australians, and if selection were baseball, you’d have to say that was a home run. The decision allowed Ganguly a great send-off series; more importantly, it helped India win the rubber because Ganguly scored a game-turning century in Mohali. He came in with India wobbling at 163 for 4 and helped the team to 469, a score that set up the match for India.

And it isn’t just the Ganguly decision; Srikkanth’s men also picked Amit Mishra over Piyush Chawla for the leg-spinner’s slot, and right on cue, Mishra helped roll the Aussies over in Mohali, taking five wickets in his debut innings. And now they’ve brought back Munaf Patel — who doesn’t exactly leap to mind as a limited-overs cricketer, given that he fields with the flair of an unhappy camel and can’t bat at all — and he seems to have done pretty well too. I even read a journalist describe him as McGrathian in the precision of his line and length!

So not only have this bunch of potential jokers done nothing wrong, they’ve rolled the dice a couple of times and turned up sixes. So while we can all appreciate Dhoni’s commitment to a team-mate returning from injury, the captain’s reaction to not getting his way seems overdone. Specially since (and here I might as well declare an interest) they were replacing R.P. Singh with my favourite young Indian cricketer, the splendid Irfan Pathan.

One of the minor tragedies of contemporary cricket is the way Pathan’s star has waned. From being a left-handed Kapil Dev in the making for the first three years of his career (he won the ICC Emerging Player of the Year accolade in 2004), he now struggles to make the Indian team as a third seamer in any format of the game. And you can see why: blind umpires. Even as I write this, he has Ravi Bopara of England trapped in front of the wicket with the one that swings into the right-hand batsman, but A.M. Saheba allows a leg-bye. Hawk Eye shows it would have missed the off-stump… and hit middle. At the end of their spells, Irfan and Zaheer have given away a similar number of runs, the difference is that Zaheer has taken two wickets.

I can see the axe come down on him for the next ODI if he doesn’t do something special with his second spell, and that would be a real pity. Because if there’s a player who has both the potential and the track record to deserve selectorial faith over an extended period, it is Irfan Pathan.

Consider his record. In 29 Tests, he has done the ‘double’: a thousand runs and a hundred wickets. His wickets cost him around 32 runs on an average which is better than Zaheer Khan and considerably better than the nearly 40 runs per wicket R.P. Singh has averaged for his 40 wickets. In ODIs, he has nearly 150 wickets at just under 30. Zaheer’s average is fractionally better, while R.P. Singh’s is distinctly worse at a little over 32. As a batsman, there’s no comparison: Pathan averages over 31 in Test matches, while R.P. Singh and Zaheer Khan have the batting records you expect of fast bowlers.

To get a sense of what Irfan Pathan’s figures signify, let’s do a quick comparison with someone outside the Indian team who is considered a pillar of the modern game. Andrew Flintoff is England’s most important player in both Tests and ODIs by virtue of his all-round skills. He has taken 206 wickets in 70 Test matches and 163 ODI wickets in 137 matches. Pathan has 148 ODI scalps in considerably fewer matches, just 104. His Test figures compare well with Flintoff’s, allowing for the fact that he has played less than half as many matches. Even more remarkably, their batting records are very similar. Flintoff averages around 32 in Tests, a run better than Pathan. He’s the better one-day batsman by a distance, but it’s worth noting that Pathan’s batting average (23) and his strike rate (78) are very useful stats for an all-round player in the limited-overs game.

Now you could argue that all this demonstrates is how misleading statistics are. The trouble with this argument is that Pathan has consistently demonstrated that far from being a tiger on paper and a baa lamb in real life, he’s a big match player who has the temperament to rise to the occasion. In that epochal Test victory in Perth on India’s last tour of Australia, he took five wickets, got runs in both innings and was declared the Man of the Match. In the inaugural ICC World Twenty20, after a year in the wilderness, Pathan came back to take 10 wickets in the tournament and three in the final against Pakistan. No prizes for guessing who was the man of that match.

So why should a player who has a record to set alongside Flintoff’s be struggling to find a place in the Indian team? One reason is that under the benighted tutelage of Greg Chappell, Pathan was used like a pinch-hitting batsman instead of being allowed to settle in as a bowling all-rounder. Chappell, who had the curious knack of turning everything he touched into lead, nearly did for Pathan. He lost pace and the ability to swing the ball late. Now that he’s back bowling at around 135 kmph, the argument seems to be that he can’t swing the ball on Indian pitches and doesn’t have the variety to bowl at the death in limited-overs cricket.

This judgement is based nearly entirely on poor performances in the Asia Cup and the ODI series in Sri Lanka, not the greatest circumstances in which to be a fast-medium swing bowler. In the Test series against Australia at home, Pathan was never going to get a look in because the team played two spinners and Ishant Sharma and Zaheer are by some distance the best pace bowlers India have. The trouble with cricket selection in India today is that performances in one format of the game are frequently used to pick teams for other formats. So if a player playing isn’t picked for a Test series, his chances of forcing his way into subsequent ODIs diminish.

Which is why Srikkanth and his selection committee ought to be congratulated for giving Irfan a go in the ODIs that remain in this dead rubber against the English. They would be culpable of wilful stupidity if they weren’t to make such a small investment in such an extraordinary talent. Nobody racks up a record like Irfan Pathan’s through luck or happenstance. Form is temporary, class is permanent: that old chestnut could have been written for Irfan’s and we’re lucky that the selection committee seems to agree.

It’s also worth saying that Pathan brings to the game more than just his skills. He brings good nature, enthusiasm and an exemplary life story. Like so many young cricketers today, Irfan is a ‘small-town boy’, but what sets him apart is the speed with which he has come to terms with his success and the ease with which he deals with the metropolitan world that he now inhabits. He’s about as exemplary a role model as you can hope to get in this slippery ‘liberalized’ world, and we’re lucky to have him back in the team. M.S. Dhoni should be pleased.