 Yusuf Pathan and Ravindra Jadeja have signed up with the Reliance Industries
for the inter-corporate tournament, which is soon to be organised by the BCCI.
They have been included in the company as sports and culture executives of the
company.
Pathan and Jadeja pledged their loyalty to Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) at
an investiture ceremony held at the Grand Bhagwati hotel in Ahmedabad
on Tuesday.
There was another cricketer who has already been a part of the Reliance group
as a sports executive, and that is Parthiv Patel. It was Patel who has
been initiating talks with the Indian cricketers and finally helped ink the
deal. Patel also said that there will be more such cricketers who would be signed
up and this was only confirmed later by Parimal Nathwani, group president
(corporate affairs), RIL, and he added, "We want them to bring in a few
more cricketers."
He also said that the RIL would look to induce Pathan and Jadeja into the Mumbai
Indians side after their contracts with the Rajasthan Royals - for
a period of three years - was over. The BCCI had earlier announced the introduction
an Inter-Corporate prize money tournament, to be conducted in 50-over and Twenty20
formats. This has been done to encourage business houses to recruit cricketers
into their fold and improve the players' employment opportunities. The winner
of this tournament stands to gain Rs.1 crore, while the runner-up will win half
of that. The losing semi-finalists will win Rs.25 lakhs each.
However, Pathan, alleged that his brother Irfan has been left out of the 30-man
Champions Trophy pool for non-cricketing reasons. He said that his brother's
performance has always been up to the mark, and that he had not been left due
to his on-field performance. He said, "Everybody has seen what is happening.
What will I comment. It is for you to react and comment on what is happening."
If one looks at the record, it does not seem to corroborate Yusuf Pathan's
statements as in Irfan's last one-day appearances for India in the series
in Sri Lanka, he managed only four wickets but and gave away runs at
7.06 runs an over in two matches. His batting was disappointing as well, and
that would have contributed in his downfall.
Irfan Pathan also played in the ICC World T20, but had nothing to write
home about, a far cry from the previous edition when he was a man-of-the-match
in the finals.
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