Yousuf from an inconsistent extremely talented batsman has now become a symbol of pure faith, humility overturning the expressions, the impressions.
The religious confidence of Mohammad Yousuf is softly overwhelming the voices of opposition. With his reputation as Pakistan's best batsman on current form and consistency and the Inzamam-ul-Haq aura and era on the wane, it seems Yousuf is in place. Philosophically it has been a magisterial edifice, embodying style and deference, social stasis and self-confidence. He was born brilliant and his high quality strokes are natural in their natural place. Yousuf's cricket has risen to a level that he has started to dispense cricket to the populace for the good of the nation. He is not a mere batsman; he is much more than that.
In the last few months Yousuf has become an institution with an ideology, but not without resistance, not without casualties, and not without a host of uneasy compromises. Yousuf had come in the Pakistan team without going through the rigors of first-class cricket. He was popular, but there was little systemic competition. An air of festive exhibition hung about all his great innings in the first five years of his international career.
A couple of majestic one-day hundreds, a sedate double century against New Zealand in 2001 and flashes of brilliance in Zimbabwe in 2002-03 -- that's all. He was not an influence on results; his was individual brilliance. Yousuf was untouched. Now radically he has become a symbol of strength, endurance, capability and confidence.
A year ago, it looked as if run making for Yousuf was a jocular, picaresque pastime, an occasion to hit and, romanticism but not yet institutionalised. Yousuf didn't acquire his special place in the national culture through an uncontested progress of gradual evolution. He did so in reaction to an alien force thrown up by rapid religious change, a force that saw his shift from the swashbuckling impetuous easygoing batsman, remaking it in a new image. Yousuf's often disheartening lapses in concentration handicapped him of various kinds giving his batting a circus like ambience.
Yousuf's was a clear case. Men who met, big with their own importance, and proud of their first suit of little brief authority, if they found nothing to settle, found something to unsettle, so jaw, jar and discord were the order of the day. As to harmonising brisk 50s or 60s but there was a drastic transformation, Yousuf from an inconsistent extremely talented batsman has now become symbol of pure faith, humility overturning the expressions, the impressions.
He isn't bothered about power, stardom not eager to find something to unsettle, so no jaw, no jar and no discord is there in the order of his stroke play and batting. He has grown into a different being. Yousuf was once part of a different culture. It was not, truly speaking, the labour that was divided, but the men-divided into mere segments of men broken into small fragments and crumbs of life... the great cry that rose from all the cities in Pakistan, louder than their furnace blast, was all in very deed for this, they we were manufacturing everything there except men. Now Yousuf is a man; definitely yes.
Pakistan cricketers seem jaded. They might be overworked. Some of them may even be overpaid. One this is for certain, though: they're slowly and surely getting their charm back. The start of 2006 heralded another Mohammad Yousuf invasion, with nine hundreds in eleven Tests. Why Pakistan's former captain Yousuf took time to develop into one of the most consistent run getters in the country's cricketing history? Sloshing around the dusted pitches in Pakistan his batting had to offer some insights.
Yousuf's conversion to Islam from his original Christian belief and his easy run getting must not be a sheer coincidence. Nonetheless, there is a general perception that Yousuf is much tougher mentally and better, but much as we might like to think that that's true. One doesn't think it is.
It's just the way the wheel's turning at the moment. He has had a very successful year that was bound to happen in a career of such an enormously talented batsman. Now he is a much composed player with a surplus of quality strokes. He is peaking at a right time. Two years down the road, many may predict an end to his immensely high-quality career but the way he has been batting, he may well become even stronger.
Adorning the same stage as Inzamam-ul-Haq from the late 1990s into the mid 2000s is another favourite of the crowds, Mohammad Yousuf (formerly Yousuf Youhana), a right hander like Hendrix but in performance more like Jimmy Page's erstwhile Yardbird contemporary Eric Clapton: laid back, mellow and magnificent. No graffiti at Gaddafi Stadium heralded 'Yousuf is a sight for the gods', but from a summer day in Zimbabwe the passive looking Yousuf nonchalantly pulled his first ball of the innings for four. He gradually began to show his class. Not that he lacked technique but more often he could see himself deserting his talent, aborting many innings, playing contemptuous strokes or failing to bend adequately. It is simply that his batting transgressed technique in a way that Inzamam's, for example, rarely did.
Yet if Inzamam had played with Yousuf with freedom, and Yousuf has played with Inzamam's resolution, which of them, it is interesting to speculate, would appear at the top of Pakistan's run makers? When he went to England in early 2006, he was Pakistan's second best batsman after Inzamam. Inside three months, Yousuf has come of age dramatically. He has matured into one of the world's best contemporary batsmen. Yousuf has overhauled every batting record that seems to have existed apart from the highest individual score and a Sir Donald Bradman like batting average of nearly 100.00. Whereas Inzamam despite being one of the most complete batsmen to adorn the international stage and certainly Pakistan's best ever, he has been something of an enigma for Pakistan cricket throughout his career, Yousuf now in his later years has posed something of a conundrum.
Yousuf though coincidentally, since his conversion from Christianity to Islam, or changing his names from Yousuf Youhana to Mohammad Yousuf has become a natural; a free spirit who now in his prime has started to see the ball early and whose first instinct is to score from it.
A graceful style comes as easily to him as it did to Sir Garfield Sobers, but like all cricketers he has been a subject to technical problems which could not always be sorted out in the middle. However, a spellbinding double hundred at Lord's and another massive century at Headingley brought Yousuf to the world fame. His technique had improved and his defence near impeccable. It was evident, even genius required practice and full concentration.
Needing 47 runs to overhaul Sir Vivian Richards's record aggregate for one calendar year struck a delightful on-drive to go past the history-mark. He swiftly moved from 44 to 48 bettering Viv's 1710 runs in 1976. Richards had scored two double hundred a gritty 232 and his Test best of 291 at the Oval. One man who really came close to beat a thirty year old record was Ricky Ponting in 2005 when he ended the season with 1544 runs.
Yousuf's magical year started with a classy double hundred against England at home before adding two centuries against India. Failing in Sri Lanka, part of the team for just one Test, Yousuf began a rare sequence with 202 at Lord's against England. Two more hundreds were brought off in the remaining three Tests. At Headingley on a treacherous pitch he hit 192. Two 190s plus were scored in the recent series against the West Indies and two separate hundreds (century in each innings) of the last Test at Karachi's National Stadium.
Yousuf during this amazing spree had splintered records one too many. First with his century number one of the last Test he went past the record of seven hundreds each for a calendar year held jointly by Aravinda de Silva (Sri Lanka) and Sir Vivian Richards. By scoring mustering five hundreds in five consecutive Tests he only became the third man in history to achieve the feat and then in the second innings of the Karachi Test he joined another select group, Jacques Kallis and Sir Donald Bradman (six centuries in six Tests). There was another record waiting as he drove past Zaheer Abbas's record aggregate for a three Test series of 583 runs (against India 1978-79). Phenomenal! Yousuf's faith and commitment to religion may have added that bit of confidence that was missing while he showed brilliance in patches. One mustn't attribute his conversion to Islam as the sole reason for his unprecedented success but there has been something about it.
Surely with growing faith, his mental attitude has changed, his commitment to a cause has become more prominent and he has started to believe in his own abilities. If someone has the tenacity to stand up and say that he his record has come on placid wickets at home, one would turn to them saying don't forget a double hundred, another individual century and a 190 plus in England in adverse conditions when PakistanÃs back was against the wall. And another message for people targeting Pakistan team's recent diversion to religious beliefs is that religion is a very personal thing; it only brings the best out of an individual.
It's a way of concentrating how one wants to run in the lane he has set for himself. Yousuf has proven the fact that batting is an art; it's about tranquility; it's about mental peace and composure not about mental aberrations and fluctuations as we see Shahid Afridi, Chris Gayle, Virender Sehwag and people like Imran Farhat aborting good starts.
Now comes another question to mind -- is Yousuf the best batsman in Pakistan's history? If he isn't the best, he is very close to people like Hanif Mohammad, Mushtaq Mohammad, Asif Iqbal, Javed Miandad, Zaheer Abbas and Inzamam-ul-Haq.
By dr.Nauman Niaz
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