Yusuf Pathan to play for Abahani Limited in the Dhaka Premier League

Baroda all-rounder Yusuf Pathan has signed for the Dhaka Premier League Bangladesh’s domestic 50-overs tournament for the Abahani Limited. Yusuf recently completed a successful Indian Premier League (IPL) season with the bat for his team Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) that was knocked out of the league in the Eliminator by eventual champions Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH).

He will join the Indian players Manoj Tiwary, Manvinder Bisla, Jalaj Saxena, Ashok Menaria and Rajat Bhatia who recently signed for DPL teams. This after the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) allowed its players to feature in List A matches outside India. With the conclusion of the IPL and no other assignments at hand immediately sources close to the big hitting Baroda batsman confirmed that he has signed for the Abahani Limited team. Earlier Tiwary, Bisla and Kaul have appeared in the Abahani side. Though, there is no restriction on the number of players that teams can sign-up, only one foreign player can be included in the starting XI.

CricTracker’s team of the tournament – The Best XI of IPL 2016

Yusuf Pathan played a different role for the Knight Riders this season taking up the duties of the finisher with a lot of responsibility. He scored 361 runs in the 15 matches with an average of 72.20 and a strike rate of 145.56 which included a couple of match-winning knocks and the best of 63* against the Royal Challengers Bangalore at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

This is not the first time that Indian players are flying to Bangladesh to play the Dhaka Premier League; in the past as well some notable players have featured in the tournament. The list includes names like- Raman Lamba, Yuvraj Singh, Ajay Jadeja, Arun Lal, Ashok Malhotra, Iqbal Abdulla, Rajat Bhatia, Chetan Sharma, Sanjeev Sharma, Rohan Gavaskar, Amol Muzumdar and Aakash Chopra.