Top 5 World Cup Underachievers: Part 2 - Batsmen

While my preceding article on World Cup (WC) underachieving bowlers did not have any major surprises in store, I cannot say the same about the corresponding list of batsmen, which concludes my tetralogy on WC specialists and underachievers.Two countries, on contrasting ends of the spectrum as far as WC success in recent years is concerned, account for 4 out of 5 batsmen on the list. While one of them dominated the signature tournament in 50-over cricket over the last two decades in spite of their designated finishers not living up to their performances in lesser One Day International (ODI) engagements, the other was hit severely by the failure of two of their premier batsmen. The only entrant outside of these two countries has quite a bizarre story of his own.The methodology remains much the same as that used for the rest of the series, in order to maintain consistency:Minimum qualification: 5000 runs overallScore: This has been calculated by multiplying the two essential parameters a batsman is assessed upon – Average and Strike Rate (SR). For example, a batsman with an average of 50 and an SR of 100 will have a score of 50 x 100 = 5000. As with most statistics associated with batting, higher the score, better is the performance.Greater the difference between their career scores and the WC scores, the higher will the batsman feature on this list.Read on, and brace yourself to get shocked – I certainly was!

#5 Mohammad Yousuf

Easily Pakistan’s most consistent player through the 2000s, Mohammed Yousuf had a mediocre WC career, which would have looked even more dismal had his figures not been boosted by runs against some of the weaker nations playing in the tournament.

The 1999 WC in England saw the elegant right-hander compete for a place in the XI against a young man exactly his opposite in terms of approach to cricket, Shahid Afridi, a battle eventually won by the latter, who became a permanent fixture towards the business end of the tournament. Yousuf’s best performance came against Scotland, where his 81* was instrumental in rescuing the team from 92-5 to a respectable 261, and helped Pakistan avoid the ignominy of losing to two minnows (the 62-run loss against Bangladesh was a couple of matches away) in the same tournament.

The Lahore-born batsman continued to rely on runs made off lesser opponents in the 2003 WC in South Africa – 101 runs out of his tournament total of 170 came in two innings against Netherlands and Namibia. He never got going against a Test-paying nation, hitting a nadir with his first-ball duck against England, getting bowled by James Anderson, himself a notorious WC underachiever.

With Pakistan following in the footsteps of neighbor India in beating a hasty retreat in the 2007 edition, Yousuf ended his unhappy association with the marquee ODI tournament with 55 runs off 3 matches at an average of 18.33.  

	Matches	Runs	Average	SR	Score	Score Differential
Overall	288	9720	41.71	75.10	3132.4	871.6
WC	13	386	32.16	70.30	2260.8