Following his impressive performances in the 2007 Deodhar Trophy and the Inter-state domestic Twenty20 competition held in April 2007, Pathan was made a part of the Indian squad for the inaugural Twenty20 World Championship, held in South Africa in September 2007. He made his Twenty20 international debut in the final against Pakistan. He opened the batting for India in the match, and scored 15 runs in the process.[1]
After a good domestic season in 2007/08, he was signed by the Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League for USD 475,000 (INR 1.9 crore). In the 2008 IPL season, he scored 435 runs and took 8 wickets. He recorded the season's fastest half century (from 21 balls) against the Deccan Chargers, and was also the Man of the Match in the final against the Chennai Super Kings.
Following his good showing in the IPL, he was selected for the Indian one-day team. After the IPL though he played all the games in the Kitply Cup and Asia Cup he got to bat only four times. He couldn't perform very well with the bat and the ball in the Asia Cup and in the Kitply Cup and so he wasn't selected for the Series.against Sri Lanka. He performed well in domestic circuit and impressed the selectors and was selected for the England ODI series in November. He scored a fifty off just 29 balls in the second ODI against England in Indore, on his 26th birthday.[2].
Yusuf had made his One-Day International debut for India against Pakistan at Dhaka on 10 June 2008. He became a regular feature of the national One-Day International team, but has yet to make his test debut [3].
Even though Pathan could not repeat his first