Younis Khan’s double century more evidence he’s at the top of all-time great Pakistan batsmen

Pakistan's Younis Khan celebrates his double century. (Reuters/Paul Childs)

Early in his career, when he had started playing first-class cricket for Habib Bank, Younis Khan’s captain Akram Raza would play a little game with him. At the end of every session that Younis was batting, Raza would go ask him how many he was on.

Often, if he was on, say, 60, he would tell him to make himself believe he was on zero and start all over again. If he had batted three sessions and found himself on 150, Raza would tell him again to play as if he was on zero.

Over the years Younis internalised this little process and turned it into some seriously big numbers.

At The Oval he made a 32nd Test hundred to 30 fifties, a rate of conversion that is the best among the top ten century-makers in the history of the game.

The last 30 times he has gotten into the 90s, he has gotten a hundred. Six times he has gone to a double or beyond. However you spin those numbers, the truth is unchanged.

“When I get to 20, I feel like it has begun,” he said in an interview last year. “‘Now get to 50’. When I get to 50, now I’m on zero. Then get to 70 and then, yes it feels like a 100 is near because the ball is older, the bowlers and fielders are tired and those balls are about to come that you need to cash in on. If the situation is such that we are not going to declare, then whenever I have scored 100, the idea is to bat on, 200, 300.”

This is easier said than done, of course, otherwise fifties would not be a numerical reality. All coaches and captains must tell their batsmen, and batsmen must tell themselves, to cash in when set. These are the staple words of any batsman at the end of a day’s play after he has made a big one.

The actual process of taking in these words, maybe at a formative stage, maybe later and acting upon them? Good luck lifting the veil on that.

That, anyway, is secondary. Younis’ double at The Oval yesterday was only partly about his ability to go big – mostly it was more evidence of this burning rock inside that has led him now, surely, atop the list of the finest Pakistani batsmen of all time. See how he has gone in this series, how wretched it has looked.

In fact it has not been as bad as that, but a series of low scores exacerbated by the fuss over his movements around the crease. That has been overdone – Younis has generally been a twitchy presence until he is settled.

He has moved around more yes, residue from the change in stance that has come from playing mostly in Asia. But towards the end of a couple of those innings, have always been clear signs he was working it out, as if calming himself down from an anxiety attack at the crease. And that has been another strength through his career, that he has worked it out himself.

It is a truth he has learnt over the years, working his way through Pakistan cricket.

Coaches and mentors and influences come and go, shaping and neatening the edges around a player. The core must remain unchanged and more importantly, it must first be found. You have to find a way Younis often says when talking about younger batsmen in the side.

That is precisely what he did at The Oval: he believed in what he is and stuck with it, imposing his style on the innings.

Nearly 20 years ago, Javed Miandad, hitherto Pakistan’s greatest batsman, struggled his way through four Tests of a five-Test series. People began wondering whether he had what it took to succeed in alien conditions. Before the start of the final Test, at The Oval as it happens, he was averaging 25 in 10 Tests in England.

Miandad responded with 260 and it was impossible not to see shades of that in Younis’s innings today. Great batsmen find a way. Miandad’s double could not force a win, but it did secure a series triumph.

Younis’s contribution might well win the Test, and a share in the series – for Pakistan right now, that is as good as a series win.

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