Guest Post by Syed Ahsan Ali
Mohammad Yousuf, Pakistan premier batsman and
Abdur Razzaq, all-rounder with destructive hitting abilities, few months back look all set to be the regular features of Pakistan cricket for another three to four years, but change is the only thing constant in life.
T20 version of the game changed that certainty of few months back into the biggest dilemma for selectors regarding mid-August announcement of final squad for the inaugural
T20 World Cup in
South Africa. Arguments of poor fielding agility across the park, against these two cornerstones of Pakistan’s 50 over cricket, are put forward by several veteran cricketers and think tanks in Pakistan cricket board.
Another opinion that is becoming quite strong in opposition to this anticipated omissions of these explosive cricketers from the list of 15 that
Yousuf, and
Razzaq can add a lot to this rapid-paced cricket for Pakistan through plethora of experience and temperament at their disposal which they have shown over the span of years. Shortest version of the game definitely demands few sprints and dives to save some very precious runs, but making few quick runs with bellicosity under pressure-cooker situations can only be achieved when you have players of
Yousuf, and
Razzaq’s caliber who have years of daylights on their backs to bolster Pakistan to finishing line. Look at their careers can help in solving this riddle.
Abdur Razzaq
Experience of
231 matches.
4465 runs with the strike rate of
79.96 and an average of
29.96 with an added value of
103 sixes.
246 Wickets with an economy rate of
4.69.
Mohammad Yousuf
Experience of
242 matches.
8081 runs with the strike rate of
74.41 and an average of
41.02 (best average in current Pakistani set of available players even better than great
Inzamam-ul-Haq) with
12 hundreds and
54 fifties.
About the Author: Syed Ahsan Ali holds a masters degree in Economics and is a writer by profession. He occasionally writes for the daily News and the daily Dawn also
I just read that Shoaib Akhtar hit Mohd. Asif with a bat in the locker room and is likely to face penalties from PCB.
The last two years have been like the Twilight Zone in Pakistani cricket. You can’t make this stuff up if you wanted to. What a waste of talent !
Such has been the case with every almost every Pakistani; may it be Dr. Abdus Salaam (resting all controversies aside), Javed Miandad, Shahbaz Senior (Hockey), Rahmat Khan (Squash), Z.A. Bhutto…
Our history is not that good when handling the outstanding ones amngst ourselves.
Dr. Nasim Ashraf could try opening himself with Shafqat Naghmi (the newly appointed senior manager in PCB) when South Africa. Our good old Saleem Altaf could play one-down and Zakir Khan at number 4… the last two deserve a few matches after years of experience in development of cricket in Pakistan :)
Aug 20, 2007 news. Quite a few headlines.
* Inzamam joins Indian Cricket League
* Imran Farhat join ICL calling it a protest against exclusion from National Team
* Abdur Razzak announces retirement from Cricket as protest on his exclusion from National Team
This has to do with “enlighten moderation”, a pakistan team consisiting of all neat clean shaven men. Beard is bad for the country and tied with American Aid.
All players have their ups and downs, including yousuf and Razaq. But leaving out a player like yusuf will be like leaving out a genius batsman like saeed anwar whose (along with many other players) career got finished way too early due to usual politics. Yusuf is simply too talented.