Irfan Pathan
Pathan was born 27 October 1984 in Baroda, Gujarat, India and is of Pashtun (Pathan) ancestry, belonging to the Pathan community in Gujarat. He grew up with his elder brother Yusuf in a mosque in Vadodara, in an impoverished family. His father served as the muezzin. Although their parents wished them to become Islamic scholars, Pathan and his brother took an interest in cricket. Their games on the grounds off and inside the mosque often necessitated apologies from their father to Muslim worshippers who visited it. In the beginning his deliveries did not reach the other end of the cricket pitch, but rigorous six-hour training sessions in blazing heat and his family's sense of discipline saw him progress steadily.
Irfan Husain
Born in Amritsar, British India, in 1944, Husain migrated to the newly created state of Pakistan with his parents in 1947. His father, Dr Akhtar Husain Raipuri, was a Sanskrit scholar, a literary critic, and a short-story writer who received his PhD from Sorbonne University. His mother, Hameeda, was a writer as well, beginning her literary career late in life, after her husband's death in 1992.