What a nice surpirse to seen an article on Younis Khan in Wall Street Journal. They’re right, his value will not truly appreciated until he’s gone. He has now made TWO more centuries than the 2nd highest centurian for Pakistan (Inzamam), and Inzi played many more Tests than Younis.
Younis Stakes Claim to Top Spot
Performance Against Australia Lifts Him to Consideration as Pakistan’s Best-Ever Batsman
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ENLARGE
Shots like this brought Pakistan’s Younis Khan a string of centuries in the Test series victory against Australia. AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
By RICHARD LORD
Nov. 4, 2014 3:15 p.m. ET0 COMMENTS
Ask Pakistan fans to name their team’s greatest ever batsmen and not many will say Younis Khan. In fact, he might not make it into many fans’ all-time Pakistani batting lineup, sacrificed for the likes of Javed Miandad, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Mohammad Yousuf, Zaheer Abbas, Saeed Anwar, Hanif Mohammad, Saleem Malik and Mushtaq Mohammad.
But after Pakistan’s triumphant 2-0 Test series win against Australia in the United Arab Emirates, which ended on Monday, Younis has earned the right to be considered equal to any of them.
Such was Pakistan’s dominance that Younis’s achievements risk getting lost amid a raft of sometimes freakish statistical highlights.
This was Pakistan’s first series win over Australia in two decades. The margin of victory in the second Test, 356, was Pakistan’s best ever, and Australia’s third worst. Australia’s series bowling performance was its worst ever. Three Pakistani batsmen scored twin centuries in a match. And a man often unfairly maligned for his slow scoring rate, Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq, smacked the joint-fastest Test century of all time.
Before this series, Younis’s poor numbers against Australia had been the single blemish on his Test record. He has cleared that up, with three centuries in a row in his first three innings of the series, including a double. (The last batsman to hit three consecutive tons against Australia was England’s Herbert Sutcliffe —in 1925.)
Younis now has the most Test centuries for a Pakistani, two ahead of Inzamam. He has Pakistan’s highest Test batting average, at 53.49. And he is third in the all-time run-scoring charts, 754 behind record-holder Javed, who took 31 more Tests than Younis’s 93 to get there.
But it appears to be in Younis’s modest nature to fly somewhat under the radar. His game doesn’t really have a particular signature shot, or even elements of his technique that stand out, except a certain bottom-handed forcefulness. It’s more a question of doing just about everything well.
Like many of the finest players, his near faultless shot selection makes batting look a ridiculously straightforward business, a simple matter of fending off good balls and dispatching bad ones to the appropriate place.
Australian captain Michael Clarke expressed surprise during the series that the 36-year-old batsman had played as few Tests as 93. It’s the result partly of the relatively small number of Tests that Pakistan plays, particularly since 2009, when security concerns have prevented teams touring the country. But it’s also partly attributable to his relationship with the Pakistan Cricket Board, which has long been fractious.
Indeed, Younis might not even have played in this series. He threatened to retire from Tests when he was left out of the One Day International squad to play Australia and described as not being in contention for next year’s World Cup, lambasting the PCB and the selectors for not repaying his loyalty to the team.
Although the margin of victory was eventually devastating, Pakistan was second favorite going into the series, and desperately needed Younis to turn up and perform.
It started the series without any of its top bowlers: the suspended Saeed Ajmal, of course, but also Junaid Khan and Abdur Rehman. That meant the side was missing both of its top spinners on surfaces far more responsive to spin than seam.
At the start of the series, the Pakistani attack of Rahat Ali,
Imran Khan, Zulfiqar Babar and Yasir Shah boasted precisely eight Test appearances between them. But Ajmal and Rehman weren’t missed. Replacements Zulfiqar—a 35-year-old left-armer with two Tests to his name—and debutant leggie Yasir managed 14 wickets at 26.35 and 12 wickets at 17.25, respectively.
Australia’s bowlers, by contrast, took a wicket every 80.15 runs, the team’s worst ever series performance by some distance. The gap between its team bowling average and its team batting average of 25.65 was also the largest ever.
And while only David Warner, Steven Smith and Mitchell Marsh of the batsmen looked like they could handle spin, it was in the bowling that Australia really lost this series. Only Mitchell Johnson was threatening, with the slow pitches completely drawing the sting of the other seamers.
Worse, no Australian spinner mastered the conditions. Nathan Lyon, in particular, consistently bowled too fast and too short, in a manner that would exploit the extra bounce of Australian pitches but gives batsmen ample time to get onto the back foot and nudge the ball away on pitches like those used in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Slow pitches drain Australia of its menace. The same thing has happened in recent years in India, where it suffered a 4-0 drubbing early last year, and even on similar surfaces outside Asia.
It remains the reason why, despite Australia’s imperious home form, the top spot in the Test rankings is currently occupied by South Africa, a side that can win in slow conditions, as it recently proved in Sri Lanka.
Pakistan now finds itself occupying the giddy heights of third in the Test rankings. But even after this result, there’s the same gap between Pakistan and New Zealand in seventh as there is between Pakistan and Australia in second.
It now faces a three-match Test series, also in the U.A.E., against New Zealand, which could launch its own rise up the rankings with the right result. The visitors’ greatest weakness, though, remains spin bowling, which can be a crippling handicap in that part of the world—as Australian just discovered.
Moreover, it will face a Pakistan team in buoyant form. But the side knows that if it’s to retain its position near the top of the rankings, given its ongoing shortage of Test cricket, it must fortify itself against the day when it no longer has Younis—a player whose value might not be truly appreciated until he’s gone.
Pakistan Cricket