• The big question on this Indian tour to the West Indies so far has been the exclusion of one of the team’s most talented cricketers from the last one-day match and the first Test. Why has Irfan Pathan been rested?

He has played a lot of cricket in the last four months and he has had a lot of responsibility in the last four months, which for a young man can be quite draining. I am not sure whether he realised how draining it was. We have only had a few weeks off in the last 12 months. Part of the learning process is having time away, just to reflect on what’s happened and look at how you might continue that improvement.

We weren’t planning to rest him at this stage but we could tell that he was pretty tired, he was a little bit down on confidence, and the best thing we could do at this stage was pull him back and give him a bit of rest mentally and physically. Hopefully, when he comes back fresher and better, he would have had the time to reflect on a number of aspects of his cricket. And I have no doubt he will come back as a better cricketer.

• Is this loss of energy one of reasons why he has lost a significant amount of pace?

I don’t think it has gone down significantly. We have looked at all the videotapes, quite back till the under-19s. He was always bowling around the 130-135 kmph mark. He’s never going to be a pace bowler. I think people have to be disabused of this idea that he’s a pace bowler. He is a swing bowler, who bats well, and that’s his future with Indian cricket. Not as a fast bowler. I don’t know where this myth started but it’s time it was put to bed. He is not a fast bowler.

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