Irfan Pathan arrived to International stage at the age of 19 and later went onto become the first bowler to take a hat trick in the first over of a test match. He shackled the top 3 Pakistani batsman in the Karachi test of 2006 and became the first Indian bowler to take a hat trick in red ball cricket. The man from Baroda showed signs of being a great bowler which draw comparison with the great “Wasim Akram”. Also read: Asia Cup 2018: Meet the beautiful female spectators of the tournament
Just when his career was taking a high flight in the sky, his form dropped and he kept degrading as a cricketer. The medium pacer lost his swing and pace which brought down his wicket taking abilities and the rise of other bowlers like RP Singh, Sreesanth and Ishant Sharma ousted him from national reckoning.
After getting dropped in 2006, selectors gave him another lifeline in 2007 world T20, which India won by defeating Pakistan in an evenly contested final. His great run in the T20 extravaganza cemented his place in ODI team for next 12 months before he was dropped following injuries and high economy rate.
He made several returns for short period but was unable to be a regular member in the Indian team. The 33-year-old continued to perform for his domestic side(Baroda) but his form continued to dip with growing age. After leading Baroda in starting two games of 2017-18 Ranji season, he was stripped off captaincy and dropped from the team. The junior Pathan then moved to Jammu and Kashmir and is currently associated with the Northern most state team of India.
With all the rise and fall, the best thing to happen in Irfan’s life was his wife Safa Baig. It is learnt that the two met in 2014 in Dubai when Irfan was on a cricket tour. The duo became good friends and later took their relationship one step forward and married on 4 February 2016 in a low-key affair in Mecca, followed by a grand reception in Vadodara.
Here’s shedding some light on Irfan’s wife, who can give a run for money to any Bollywood actress.
1- Safa Baig is a Jeddah based model who has been active in the modelling circuit in middle-east.
2- All-though she was raised in Jeddah but had her roots from India. Safa’s family originally belongs to Hyderabad, India and she is an Indian national.
3- Apart from being a model, she has also worked as a journalist in a PR firm as an executive editor and was featured in several prominent fashion magazines in the Gulf.
4- The duo are now a proud parents of a 2-year-old baby boy named Imran Khan Pathan.
5- She is a well-known nail artist and received education at the International Indian School in Jeddah.
