"Pakistan don't have anyone like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma" - Mohammad Yousuf
FILE PHOTO: Mohammad Yousuf
Former Pakistan captain and one of the top batsmen in the past decade, Mohammad Yousuf criticised Pakistan’s current captain Misbah-ul-Haq and blamed the lack of right role models as the reason behind Pakistan’s batting woes.
He lamented the fact that Pakistan don’t have any batsmen of the calibre that are present in the Indian line-up currently.
“We don’t have any compact batsmen like Rohit Sharma or Virat Kohli simply because we have developed wrong role models for our new batsmen and that is now beginning to show,” Yousuf said.
Pakistan lost the just-concluded ODI series against South Africa 1-4, and typical batting collapses saw Pakistan lose many matches from winning positions. Lauding the Indian system, Yousuf blamed Pakistan’s flawed batting structure to this loss.
He said, “In India they have developed compact and quality batsmen because their youngsters followed proper role models. Plus their selectors and system recognizes and allows their young batsmen to develop and move forward with confidence. I don’t think there is any favoritism or bias involved in their system.”
He also criticised current skipper Misbhah-ul-Haq for his batting technique and called him a wrong role model for the youngsters.
“He is the wrong example for the other batsmen to follow because technically he himself is suspect against fast bowlers and doesn’t have the range of strokes to come and bat higher up the order as captain to play the role of a motivational leader, neither does he have ability for big scores or to finish a match.
“Misbah has a strange batting technique and he is someone who consumes lot of balls to get going and is yet not capable of playing a impact innings. The selfish nature of his batting is now beginning to show in our other players.
“Our batsmen are now just not playing down the ground strokes and they get bogged down … Misbah is also now scoring more runs in one day cricket because of the change in rules.
“Misbah seeing the state of affairs in the team should have been batting at number three but he has refused to do so and as a result we are now seeing a generation of batsmen who are not technically correct and who are satisfied with just a half century or more. There is no one to play match winning innings like the Indian players have become used too.”
Yousuf refused to blame the lack of application from the batsmen on T20 cricket.
“I don’t agree with that. Are we playing more T20 cricket than India but they are still producing quality batsmen. They have batsmen fit for every format of the game.
“Look at De Villiers today he batted in three different gears today because top players and captains set benchmarks for themselves and their team. Unfortunately our players and team is lacking in that,” he said.
He also batted for Inzamam-ul-Haq‘s appointment as the batting coach of the Pakistan team.
“I don’t know whether we need a head coach but we definitely need a batting coach as soon as possible and there is no better person than Inzamam to do this,” he said.