Darren Berry, the director of coaching for the defending champions, laments the batting frailty of the team, conceding that they pin all their hopes on Yusuf, turning to him repeatedly to bail them out in one emergency after another. But the over-reliance on Yusuf might just be a blessing in disguise for Team India ahead of the World T20 next month.

His success as a finisher could be the missing piece in the puzzle that India skipper MS Dhoni has been looking for in a line-up boasting of Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma, besides himself. The talk among members of the Indian think-tank, spread across different franchises, is that Yusuf could be a perfect fit at No 7, with Dhoni preferring to play measured knocks these days.

“Yusuf is an incredible finisher of a game. That’s what his role is, and should be,” says Jeremy Snape, Rajasthan’s high-performance coach. “We saw how he played in the last game against the short-pitched ball. He was hitting sixes, hooking the ball out of the ground. And we’ve seen how destructive he is against spin, in that Super Over against Kolkata.”

Against Deccan Chargers on Saturday, Yusuf walked in at No 8 with 49 runs needed from 35 balls. He miscued an attempted hit over long-off, but not before changing the equation to less than a run a ball. “Yusuf is certainly proving to be a valuable player. This guy seems to win a Man of the Match award every time he has played in the IPL. As it was getting tight against us, he waited patiently and picked a couple of right balls to try and hit for six,” said Chargers skipper Adam Gilchrist.

Berry adds: “There are some fine players in this competition but he’s regularly changed the course of matches. His bowling too has been very useful. He should walk in to any XI right now.”