Oval Test heroes: http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Fazal-Mahmood-c56927 in 1954 - Mohammad Yousuf in 2010?
Sometimes cricket fans are left in a state of utter confusion and dismay when decisions made by the PCB are made public. Following an embarrassing defeat at the hands of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 down under largely due to infighting amongst the biggest names in Pakistan cricket, the PCB conveniently held an inconclusive inquiry into the whitewash and banned almost everyone but themselves. Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan were indefinitely banned along with one year bans on Shoaib Malik and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan. The need for discipline is an absolute necessity in any cricketing side without a doubt. However, discipline must not come at the cost of completely disregarding the best players of the team who have contributed immensely to the national side.
This policy of sidelining cricketing heroes is an old practice or for that matter a forte of the PCB, with players like http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Wasim-Akram-c96292 – all leaving cricket in unceremonious ways. Akram was barred from playing cricket for Pakistan after performing brilliantly in the 2003 World Cup since he took a total of 19 wickets. Logic is hard to find. Wasim Akram, who had contributed so much for Pakistan cricket and had given his best performance, was sidelined and sacked by the PCB along with eight other players.
Mohammad Yousuf was declared the ICC Test Player of the Year following his performance of scoring 12 tons in a calendar year. The player bagged 1788 runs in 2006 with an average of 99.88 runs per match along with breaking two Viv Richard world records. He is the only player after Javed Miandad and Inzamam to have surpassed 6000 runs in test cricket. Moreover, Yousuf is only one century behind Inzamam to become the leading century scorer for Pakistan in International cricket.
With a One Day batting average of 43 and a Test batting average of an impressive 53, it is amazing to see how the PCB decided to sack such a brilliant cricketer from Pakistan’s cricketing landscape. The decision to call him out of retirement to play for the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ijaz-Butt-c64128 has taken over as the chairman. For any cricketing side, the strength of the middle order plays a pivotal role in turning the odds in their favour and that is something that the Pakistan team cannot afford to experiment with.
Looking back in retrospect, one can see the significance of Inzamam and Yousuf playing in the middle order, who served to gel the team together and make it a very strong side. Younger players like Azhar Ali and Umar Amin lack maturity and patience to be successful in the middle order in England, and it will certainly take time for them to groom into veteran middle order batsmen.
With the inclusion of Yousuf, one can surely hope that he will provide the Pakistan team the much needed crutch for them to make a comeback in the Oval test. Pakistan desperately needs to make a comeback since till now the competition has been more or less one sided, with the only competitive cricket played by Saeed Ajmal and Haider Zulqarnain in the second test. Unfortunately for Pakistan, Haider has been ruled out of the third test due to injury. However, one thing can be said for sure that this young lad has most certainly proven his mettle under very stressful conditions. Not only does he have the right mindset and batting ability to match it, but he is also a very decent wicket-keeper. Kamran Akmal a.k.a Butter Fingers has been a disaster for the Pakistani side, who has been accused of match fixing for poor keeping, which is like “accusing a legless man of running slowly on purpose.”
Kamran Akmal is good batsman and has the potential to make it to the national side as a batsman. However, cricket fans would rather prefer that Butter Fingers stays away from wicket-keeping. As for Mohammad Yousuf, he is a player that needs to be cherished by the Pakistan cricket team, for such players are born once in a decade. The great Brian Lara himself has said, “It's excellent and slightly unbelievable what he has achieved. Twelve hundreds in a year and that many runs is just magnificent. He is a very committed player and an excellent role model, not just for Pakistan but for young cricketers everywhere.”
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