Younis Khan bats on for Pakistan – with a smile
Younis Khan is easily the most likeable cricketer one can come across. With his easy-going attitude and ever-smiling disposition, the Pakistani batting star has won millions of fans and will be the cynosure of all eyes when he takes the field against England in the first Test match of a series beginning in Abu Dhabi today.
Khan and the ageless Misbah-ul-Haq have been the batting mainstays of the Pakistani team over the past 15 years or so, steering their country to thrilling wins and nerve-wracking draws, often from impossible situations.
The right-hander now needs just 19 runs to overtake the legendary Javed Miandad’s tally of 8,832 runs and become Pakistan’s highest run-getter in Tests, a feat nobody would grudge.
While Miandad is arguably Pakistan’s greatest batsman, the difference in their personalities and the way they got their runs couldn’t be more striking. Miandad was a scrapper – who got under the skin of bowlers and never shied away from a verbal spat. Even the runs he scored had an element of truculence about them.
Khan, on the other hand, goes about his business with the calmness of a sage. In fact, rival players never bother to sledge him because it is pointless. He rarely gets hassled by the chatter around him, instead focusing on the job at hand, which often means digging his team out of a hole or laying the foundation for a big score.
Khan, a former captain, will be playing his 102nd Test match today and if he overtakes Miandad would have done it in 22 fewer Tests, which in itself is a measure of his consistency.
But the man himself stays humble. “Passing Miandad would be great but I am in no way close to the great man who is a legend of Pakistani cricket. Even after passing his tally of runs I would not be able to attain the heights Miandad achieved,” Khan said yesterday.
It is this humility – absent in most modern-day sportsmen – that has endeared himself to fans all across the cricketing world.
An outstanding success
The first Presidents Cup golf tournament in Asia was an outstanding success and should come back to the continent in the future.
Sunday’s thrilling finale in Incheon, South Korea saw the valiant International team lose by just a single point 15.5-14.5 on the final green after 30 matches over four days in the closest encounter since the Cup was shared in 2003.
With packed home galleries cheering his every move at the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club, Bae Sang-Moon couldn’t quite deliver at that crucial, pressure-filled moment.
Instead it was captain Haas’s son Bill who secured the dramatic win to take the Cup back to the United States for the ninth time in its 11-edition history.
The close encounter and thrilling denouement breathed welcome new life into the Presidents Cup after a succession of runaway victories for the US.
It was played in the true spirit of the game without the rancour or rampant jingoism that so often mars the Ryder Cup between the US and Europe.
Players shook hands instead of slapping high fives and the sense of mutual respect was palpable, just the way it should be.
