Younis Khan Showed Them

[hawkeye]

A man with a lot to prove can accomplish great things. Younis Khan felt he was treated badly and set out to show the selectors.

The toe-crunching missile of a yorker that trapped Mohammad Hafeez LBW must have left him in considerable pain, showing that high pace through the air sometimes allows the game's most fearsome pacer to ignore sluggish surfaces, and one wonders if the batsman's request for a review was done more out of a sense of duty to his team rather than any genuine desire to remain in the firing line. Johnson remained a big threat throughout as figures of three wickets for 39 off 31 overs suggest, but his brutality was blunted and the potential damage limited.

For that the Pakistanis have to thank, in the main, Younis Khan. The first 34 deliveries he faced yielded only one run, after a hundred he was just 27. But he grew more fluent against spin especially, while warding off the challenges presented mainly by Johnson. Pakistan needed to put up its strongest barrier against the rampaging left-handed pacer, and that's what Younis was, as he and Azhar Ali added 108, preventing a rout that could easily have materialized had any further breach occurred. Sarfraz Ahmed's rollicking 109 off 103 balls and Pakistan's eventual 454 would likely not have occurred had such a foundation not been constructed.

Younis Khan Showed Them

 

[SpitfiresKent]

Believe it or not but Younis Khan is one of my favourite batsmen. I can't believe they dropped him from the ODI squad. He should be back for the visit of New Zealand though.

 

[LiveLoveABD]

I've had the privilege of meeting Younis Khan in person and he's one of the most humble human beings I've met with stardom. To better that, he's a mighty fine batsmen and if Pakistan's cricket board has any sense, which I've doubted forever, they'll not just put him in the WC squad, but bat him at 3.