Mohammad Yousuf

Mohammad Yousuf biography

source link (google.com)

Mohammad Yousuf, born on August 27, 1974, is a Pakistani middle-order batsman who went on to become one of the highest run-scorers produced by the country in both Tests and One-Day Internationals (ODIs). Yousuf could have achieved so much more and become one of the modern-day greats, had it not been for some unfortunate circumstances in the latter half of his career. Jaideep Vaidya reflects on the career of the stylish batsman.

With a flowing, bearded look that resembled WG Grace, an insatiable hunger for runs that rivalled Don Bradman, an elegant and effective high backlift that he made his own and the ability to inconspicuously accumulate tons and tons of runs; Mohammad Yousuf was easily one of the most delightful batsmen to watch in recent times.

Former coach Bob Woolmer likened him to a Ferrari when he is batting and a truck when he isn’t.

With a pragmatic manner of scoring runs, but still elegant enough to make you go wow at his strokes, Yousuf ploughed his way to 7,530 runs in Test matches — the third-highest run-tally among Pakistanis, behind Javed Miandad and Inzamam-ul-Haq) — including 25 hundreds and 46 fifties. In ODIs, he is Pakistan’s second-highest run-getter with 9,554, behind just Inzamam, including 15 centuries and 62 fifties. It’s a tally that is hard to match, and if circumstances in his career were better, he would easily have gone on to be Pakistan’s greatest batsman ever.

He was born Yousuf Youhana, a Christian, in Lahore in 1974; and like most Christian minorities in Pakistan, who had converted from Hindu untouchables in the 19th century, he was born into poverty. His father worked at the railway station and, thus, his family lived in the Railway Colony. Yousuf took to cricket from a young age, but unlike his peers he could not afford a bat; so he had to make do by swatting a taped tennis ball around, tossed by his brother, with stray wooden planks.

When he was 12, he was spotted by a local gymkhana who asked him to play for them. As he grew up, he joined the Forman Christian College and played for their cricket team as well, before giving up for almost a year in 1994, when he was 20. Although he was and probably realised that he was very good at cricket, he never gave it a serious thought. A steady income was always at the top of the priority list; never did the thought of playing for the country cross his mind. “I just wanted a job in an organisation with a First-Class cricket team, and to make a living,” were as far as his humble ambitions went, as quoted by Wisden. Yousuf had found work at a tailor’s shop when a local club hauled him up when they were short of players. Yousuf stepped in to make the numbers, and went ahead of score more than hundred of them. It led to a season in the Bradford League, which was a stepping stone into First Class cricket.

Yousuf was ignored by mighty and pristine Lahore team in the mid-nineties due to his faith and background. Thus, he went ahead to play for Bahawalpur in 1996. Within a few months, Lahore realised their folly and requested him to play for them in the 1997-98 season. Within no time of making the switch, Yousuf was picked in the Pakistan squad for a tour of South Africa and made his Test debut at Durban in February 1998. He had thus become only the fourth Christian to play cricket for Pakistan after of Wallis Mathias, Antao D’Souza and Duncan Sharpe, an Anglo-Pakistani.

And so it began. The Pakistani run machine was switched on; its first target was the Zimbabwe team. In his first two innings against the African nation in both Tests and ODIs, Yousuf scored half-centuries. He also went on to hold the record of scoring the most runs without being dismissed in ODIs when he hit 405 runs unscathed against Zimbabwe in 2002–2003, including a 23-ball fifty and 68-ball hundred. He was also the top scorer in the world in the shorter format in 2002 and 2003. In that same period, he blazed his way to a 27-ball fifty in a Test match against South Africa, which is the fourth fastest by any player. Yousuf soon formed a formidable Pakistan middle order along with Inzamam-ul-Haq and Younis Khan that pulverised bowling attacks around the world.

Mohammad Yousuf

Mohammad Yousuf

Mohammad Yousuf

Mohammad Yousuf

Mohammad Yousuf

Mohammad Yousuf

Mohammad Yousuf

Mohammad Yousuf

Mohammad Yousuf

Mohammad Yousuf

Mohammad Yousuf

Umar Gull

Umar Gull biography

source link (google.com)  

Date of Birth: April 14, 1984

Birth Place: Peshawar, North-Western Frontier Province

Major teams Pakistan, Gloucestershire, Habib Bank Limited, Kolkata Knight Riders, North West Frontier Province, North West Frontier Province Panthers, Pakistan A, Pakistan International Airlines, Peshawar, Peshawar Panthers, Western Australia

Batting style: Right-hand bat

Playing role: Bowler 

Bowling style: Right-arm fast-medium

The less aggressive, but the most successful and said the pace of Product Pakistan in recent years, Umar Gul, Pakistan, the final assembly line, the pace bowling talent. He was only nine games of the first class, asked if called national duty because of the poor in Pakistan World Championship in 2003. There are even traces of Sharjah, Gul are very well maintained excellent discipline and significant lateral displacement of the new ball.

Not free, but bowls a heavy ball very quickly, and exceptional control measures, and the ability to extract the movement of funds from the seam. Moreover, this area is possible to complete recovery in most areas, the nature and duration of the back, is very useful. His first important moment in his career in the Lahore Test against India, 2003-04. Undaunted is a daunting batting line-up, Gul devastated by Indian top order, moving the ball in both directions from the fast pace of fashion. 31st May in their first innings gave Pakistan the early initiative when he went home to win the race.

Unfortunately, this is his last cricket for over a year, elected three stress fractures in his back immediately after the test. The damage would have ended many of his international career, but Gul returned, fitter and sharper than it was in late 2005. He returned to Pakistan in India ODI Series T in the country in February 2006 and in Sri Lanka was still evidence of rehabilitation, are resistant to these two tests, but it was actually the second half of 2006, which is full of age. Leading the attack on England and the West Indies players of Pakistan was the main victim, finishing much better bowler Gul of Pakistan.

After Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif is distracted, the cutting edge Pakistani Gul and one of the best players in the world was fast. She is intelligent and good, both for success in all three forms of 2009 and it turned out that he has established a counter window and ODIs, the evidence is not dead (also a career spanning more than six stops on the tour to Sri Lanka) and the world's best Twenty20 player who can come after the first, and burning at the request of York.

He suggested that as the first recipient of the window years World Twenty20 2007, after two years, has impressed wherever he went and Kolkata Knight Riders IPL Twenty20 tournament and mainland Australia. The confirmation came on the bigger picture: Australia poleaxed T20i with Dubai is 4.8, which is the best wicket-thrower and the receiver of Pakistan had won the Twenty20 World War II in England. The highlight was a 5-6 against New Zealand, the quality of bowling exposure York. Is not a form of a horse, however, and is an integral part of the attack on all forms Pakistan.

Umar Gull

Umar Gull

Umar Gull

Umar Gull

Umar Gull

Umar Gull

Umar Gull

Umar Gull

Umar Gull

Umar Gull

Umar Gull

Kamran Akmal

Kamran Akmal Biography 

source link (google.com)

Kamran Akmal (born 13 January 1982 in Lahore) is a Pakistani cricketer who has played 38 Test matches and 88 ODIs for Pakistan. He is a quick-scoring batsman and a wicket-keeper, who has achieved four centuries and two fifties in 31 Test innings. However, his first century was vital - his 109 from the number eight position at Mohali, coming in with Pakistan in a lead of 39 against India in the first Test, ensured that the visitors could draw the match. His form against the touring English in 2005 made him one of the most important players in the team. Naturally, he is a batsman that plays lower down the order but has sometimes opened in both Test and One-day cricket. As an opener he has scored two back to back centuries in ODIs against England. Coming in lower down the order in Test matches, he played one memorable innings. He saved Pakistan from a score of 39/6, scoring a century, to a competitive 245 which helped Pakistan win the match and series. His batting was highly productive in early 2006 as he scored seven international hundreds within the space of 6 months. 

Since his tour of England in Summer 2006 however his batting form dwindled and steadily become worse. His wicket-keeping also worsened and dropped many catches on both the England tour and on a tour to South Africa in early 2007. Since then he did not score an international hundred until the Bangladeshi tour of Pakistan in 2008. Kamran Akmal was dropped for the Asia Cup 2008 as a result of his poor batting form and very poor keeping. He was replaced by Sarfraz Ahmed who has performed very well the domestic level. Kamran was named in the 30 man probable squad for the 2008 ICC Champions Trophy. On 12 November 2008, Akmal hit two consecutive 6s in the last over. 

As a result Pakistan won the first ODI in Abu Dhabi against West Indies. Akmal was also signed on to the Rajasthan Royals, and played in the inaugural season of the IPL. He played five matches in the tournament, as wicket-keeper and top-order batsman, including the final of the tournament against the Chennai Super Kings. He took two catches in the first innings, however he was run out for six runs during the Royal's chase. The Royals went on to win the tournament after a thrilling finish.

Current age 29 years 6 days

Kamran Akmal may well be the most emphatic proof of cricket's changed priorities post Adam Gilchrist. Sides now search for an explosive batsman who can change a day, an innings, a phase with the bat and so long as you can identify right wicketkeeping glove from left, the place is yours.

Kamran Akmal might fighting fit be the majority vigorous testimony of cricket’s distorted main concerned position Adam Gilchrist. A side at the present rummage around for a volatile batsman who can revolutionize a day, an innings, and a stage by means of the bat and so elongated while you can recognize right wicket keeping glove from left, the position is yours.

There has been diminutive distrust concerning Akmal’s batting. The cleanliness of his constrains and the potency of his wounding and dragging, for the most part on slower subcontinent exteriors, has all the time apprehended a strong magnetism. And when it comes mutually as it did one January morning in Karachi in opposition to India – one of the Test innings of that decade – he makes it in the side as a batsman unaccompanied.

Other than his glove work, which started quit auspiciously at what time he successfully finished the battle between Rashid Latif and Moin Khan in belatedly 2004, has got worse frighteningly and a small number of Pakistan matches are complete exclusive of a lumbering Akmal mistake.

It was not for all time hence, for that he was excellent at what time he started, quit presentable to make an impression Ian Healy. On the other hand uncontrollably cricket in all three systems have consent to methodological blunders move stealthily in and critics and specialists have extended pushed for the need for him to take a break.

Kamran Akmal may well be the most emphatic proof of cricket's changed priorities post Adam Gilchrist. Sides now search for an explosive batsman who can change a day, an innings, a phase with the bat and so long as you can identify right wicketkeeping glove from left, the place is yours.There has been little doubt about Akmal's batting. The purity of his drives and the strength of his cutting and pulling, particularly on slower subcontinent surfaces, has always held a strong allure. And when it comes together as it did one January morning in Karachi against India - one of the Test innings of that decade - he makes it in the side as a batsman alone.

Kamran Akmal

Kamran Akmal

Kamran Akmal

Kamran Akmal

Kamran Akmal

Kamran Akmal

Kamran Akmal

Kamran Akmal

Kamran Akmal

Kamran Akmal

Kamran Akmal