Can http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mohammad-Yousuf-c77465 still be an asset for Pakistan’s Test team? - Part One
Discarded Pakistani middle-order batsman, Mohammad Yousuf, has expressed his desire to make a comeback to the Test team and feels that he can still contribute towards the cause of the Green Shirts in the longer version of the sport.
The 37-year-old cricketer is considered to be one of the best middle-order batsmen produced by the country along with http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Javed-Miandad-c66580. No one in the world of cricket plays the cover drive in a more stylish fashion than Yousuf.
The right-handed batsman reached the peak of his career when he scored 1788 runs in a calendar year, which is a world record. He averaged 99.33 that year and scored nine centuries and three half-centuries.
When Yousuf gets going, there is hardly any batsman in the modern-day sport, who is more elegant. The cricketer from Lahore is surely a treat to watch when he has the bat in his hands.
With 7530 Test runs at an average of 52.29 runs per innings and 24 hundreds, Yousuf is without doubt one of the modern greats of the game. For almost a decade, he held http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Younis-Khan-c98325.
However, the right-handed batsman has gone through some controversies since the last five years. Upon being dropped from the T20 squad in 2007, Yousuf decided to join the rebellious Indian Cricket League (ICL). He created differences with the then captain
of Pakistan, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shoaib-Malik-c90088 and was alleged of destryoing the team-spirit.
Yousuf was made the captain of the national team in 2009 after the resignation of Younis Khan, but his first tour of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 turned out to be a disaster. The Green Shirts failed to win a single match against the Kangaroos and there were
reports of Yousuf’s differences with the team management and senior players, especially Malik once again.
In the last One Day International of the tour at Perth, Yousuf refused to take the field before the toss after a verbal spat with the team management. As a result, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahid-Ali-Khan-c89356 Afridi led Pakistan in that match. Ironically, it created another controversy
as Boom Boom decided to bite the cricket ball during the encounter.
After the tour, Yousuf, along with several other senior players was banned from international cricket by Pakistan Cricket Board’s then chairman, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ijaz-Butt-c64128.
He made a comeback to the Test team for the tour of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/England-c56013 in 2010, which again proved to be one of the most controversial series’ of Pakistan’s cricket history because of the spot-fixing scandal (obviously, Yousuf had nothing to do with that).
Since then, Yousuf has been out of the Test team as the selectors felt rightly that the batsman’s fitness and fielding needs a lot of improvement.
The record-holding batsman did not take part in the previous domestic season of the country but recently he has shown keenness to resume his Test career. According to sources, Yousuf has been encouraged by the new coach of Pakistan team, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Davenell-Frederick-Whatmore-c52571, who
specially conducted a fitness test to gauge the condition of the ace batsman.
Yousuf has made it clear that he is not interested in the limited-overs format of the game but feels that he still has a lot of Test cricket left in him, which he thinks is the pinnacle of the game.
To be continued...
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