Yusuf Pathan over the moon to be 'the chosen one' of KKR and to repay faith of owners

Yusuf smashed a 22-ball 72 against SRH taking KKR to the second position

Back in the spotlight after his awe-inspiring knock against Sunrisers Hyderabad on 24th may 2014, swaggering KKR batsman Yusuf Pathan attributed his success to team owners Shah Rukh Khan, Jai Mehta and Juhi Chawla for his fine form, saying that they backed him even after a lumbering presentation at the start of the season.

Yusuf, who smashed a scintillating 22-ball 72 to power Kolkata Knight Riders to finish second in the league table, said he "never went out of business" and was just "a little unlucky" as all cricketers go through such phases in their career.

Elated at being part of an IPL-winning team thrice, "I would give credit to Shah Rukh bhai, Jai bhai and Juhi behen for backing me. All the three wanted to retain me after the 2013 season but for some reasons they couldn't. So I have always been their preference and it's good to be the chosen one. They always want me to do well," Yusuf told PTI in an interview.

"Gautam trusts me immensely and had told me a number of times that I am his match-winner. And it felt good when I finally came up with a knock that helped my team end second before the play-offs. That innings justified his trust in me and felt relieved on finally justifying the skipper's faith. ," said Yusuf.

Yusuf, who was part of the Rajasthan Royals side that won the inaugural edition in 2008, was also thankful to the former skipper Shane Warne for instilling confidence in him.

"See, Shane Warne helped me immensely. He had a knack for handling youngsters and he handled me pretty well. He trusted me. So both Warne and Gambhir have utilised me differently and their respective styles have benefitted me," said Yusuf.

After a low track run through the first half of the league, the 'Baroda bomber' admits that his promotion to the No.4 position worked for him.

"If you see, I batted at No.6 in the early part of this season and it is very difficult to score consistently when you come at that slot in T20 cricket. But since the time I was promoted to No.4, I started performing and came up with some useful knocks for my team," said Yusuf.

The Baroda all-rounder admitted to missing bowling in the IPL as he said, “I absolutely miss bowling in the IPL. The way Warne used me as a new ball spinner, I guess that was a first in T20. I bowl a lot in domestic cricket as well. But it's different in KKR, which has a lot of good spinners."

After leading Baroda to the title in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 trophy and now being a part of a successful IPL team, Yusuf now aims to find a spot in World Cup 2015. "I am very positive. I am working hard and obviously my goal would be to feature in the World Cup squad. But destiny plays a big part. My job is to perform whenever I get the opportunity. My domestic season went well with Baroda and the IPL second half was great. The rest is up to God," said Yusuf as he left to join the celebrations.