The Seventh Grand

[Dhondy]

Two unrelated things, curiously similar in magnitude, happened during the final Test between Sri Lanka & Pakistan. Both events went almost unnoticed. When he scored his final run in the first innings of the just concluded Test, run out for 90, Mohammad Yousuf reached 7000 Test runs. The milestone had taken him 139 innings. In doing so, he became the 4th fastest ever to do so, behind Wally Hammond (131), Sachin Tendulkar(136) and Gary Sobers (138). The record lasted for precisely three days. The Sri Lankan captain reached the very same milestone when he scored his 35th run in his eventually unbeaten 2nd innings knock. The feat had taken him 138 innings, one less than Yousuf. The similarities don't end there. Both batsmen boast remarkably similar averages- Yousuf 54.86 versus Sangakkara's 55.42. Yousuf was the top ranked batsman in the world two weeks ago. Sangakkara has supplanted him to that peak today. Take a peep behind the rather grandiose curtain of career statistics and a different picture emerges. Yousuf has huge holes in his CV. He averages under 30 against Australia, South Africa and Sri Lanka. Sangakkara does not average below 40 against any nation. Yousuf really struggles on the bouncy pitches of Australia & South Africa, where he averages 33 and 26 respectively. Sangakkara? He averages 65 in Australia and 39 in South Africa. If he has one fallow venue, it's India, where he averages 25 to Yousuf's 34. Only 8 of Yousuf's 24 hundreds, 33.3%, have ended in victory for Pakistan. Look who he scored them against- 4 against WI, 2 against Bangladesh, 1 each against Zimbabwe and England. You don't need a great deal of imagination to realise that in 7 of those 8 instances, the team would have won anyway. Yousuf rarely scores big when the situation demands....and his big knocks seldom change the course of the match. A veritable minnow-basher. OTOH, 13 of Sangakkara's 19 hundreds have come in winning causes (68.4%), a proportion that's double Yousuf's. He may score tons less often than the prolific Pakistani, but he makes them count. The spread of tons is evenly balanced- 2 each against South Africa, India, West Indies, BD & Zim, and 1 each against Pakistan, England & NZ. If you delve further, you begin to see several occasions when he scored back to the wall hundreds. The one scored today in a match saving effort versus Pakistan stands out. Equally resplendent was the defiant 192 he scored in the 4th innings of the match against Australia at Hobart in 2007. All 3 of his losing tons came in the team 2nd innings, all away from home, boy on the burning deck stuff. Yousuf's corresponding metric? Zilch. But it is when you look at the split of Sangakkara's performance with and without wicketkeeping duties do you begin to realise the extent of his achievements. Since being unfettered by wicketkeeping duties, Sangakaara has scored at an amazing 78 runs per innings, dwarfing his 40.48 as the team keeper. One can only speculate what could have been had he always been a specialist bat. Two batsmen with 14000 runs between them. One a hall of fame-er in most people's books. The other? Just a very good batsman.

[WeStMiDz]

When Dhondy talks, everyone listens. Good stuff once again!

[Mamu]

Two unrelated things, curiously similar in magnitude, happened during the final Test between Sri Lanka & Pakistan. Both events went almost unnoticed. When he scored his final run in the first innings of the just concluded Test, run out for 90, Mohammad Yousuf reached 7000 Test runs. The milestone had taken him 139 innings. In doing so, he became the 4th fastest ever to do so, behind Wally Hammond (131), Sachin Tendulkar(136) and Gary Sobers (138). The record lasted for precisely three days. The Sri Lankan captain reached the very same milestone when he scored his 35th run in his eventually unbeaten 2nd innings knock. The feat had taken him 138 innings, one less than Yousuf. The similarities don't end there. Both batsmen boast remarkably similar averages- Yousuf 54.86 versus Sangakkara's 55.42. Yousuf was the top ranked batsman in the world two weeks ago. Sangakkara has supplanted him to that peak today. Take a peep behind the rather grandiose curtain of career statistics and a different picture emerges. Yousuf has huge holes in his CV. He averages under 30 against Australia, South Africa and Sri Lanka. Sangakkara does not average below 40 against any nation. Yousuf really struggles on the bouncy pitches of Australia & South Africa, where he averages 33 and 26 respectively. Sangakkara? He averages 65 in Australia and 39 in South Africa. If he has one fallow venue, it's India, where he averages 25 to Yousuf's 34. Only 8 of Yousuf's 24 hundreds, 33.3%, have ended in victory for Pakistan. Look who he scored them against- 4 against WI, 2 against Bangladesh, 1 each against Zimbabwe and England. You don't need a great deal of imagination to realise that in 7 of those 8 instances, the team would have won anyway. Yousuf rarely scores big when the situation demands....and his big knocks seldom change the course of the match. A veritable minnow-basher. OTOH, 13 of Sangakkara's 19 hundreds have come in winning causes (68.4%), a proportion that's double Yousuf's. He may score tons less often than the prolific Pakistani, but he makes them count. The spread of tons is evenly balanced- 2 each against South Africa, India, West Indies, BD & Zim, and 1 each against Pakistan, England & NZ. If you delve further, you begin to see several occasions when he scored back to the wall hundreds. The one scored today in a match saving effort versus Pakistan stands out. Equally resplendent was the defiant 192 he scored in the 4th innings of the match against Australia at Hobart in 2007. All 3 of his losing tons came in the team 2nd innings, all away from home, boy on the burning deck stuff. Yousuf's corresponding metric? Zilch. But it is when you look at the split of Sangakkara's performance with and without wicketkeeping duties do you begin to realise the extent of his achievements. Since being unfettered by wicketkeeping duties, Sangakaara has scored at an amazing 78 runs per innings, dwarfing his 40.48 as the team keeper. One can only speculate what could have been had he always been a specialist bat. Two batsmen with 14000 runs between them. One a hall of fame-er in most people's books. The other? Just a very good batsman.

Which is why I said -- All Current Paki Players SUCK ! and there was this Paki Moron who jumped all over me. Pakis should thank their lucky stars they dont play often enough and they play top teams even less frequently like AUS and RSA. Otherwise they would have ranked nothing more than 8th. They would have had such an Abysmal record they wouldnt have had a place to show their face

[DomainK]

Two unrelated things, curiously similar in magnitude, happened during the final Test between Sri Lanka & Pakistan. Both events went almost unnoticed. When he scored his final run in the first innings of the just concluded Test, run out for 90, Mohammad Yousuf reached 7000 Test runs. The milestone had taken him 139 innings. In doing so, he became the 4th fastest ever to do so, behind Wally Hammond (131), Sachin Tendulkar(136) and Gary Sobers (138). The record lasted for precisely three days. The Sri Lankan captain reached the very same milestone when he scored his 35th run in his eventually unbeaten 2nd innings knock. The feat had taken him 138 innings, one less than Yousuf. The similarities don't end there. Both batsmen boast remarkably similar averages- Yousuf 54.86 versus Sangakkara's 55.42. Yousuf was the top ranked batsman in the world two weeks ago. Sangakkara has supplanted him to that peak today. Take a peep behind the rather grandiose curtain of career statistics and a different picture emerges. Yousuf has huge holes in his CV. He averages under 30 against Australia, South Africa and Sri Lanka. Sangakkara does not average below 40 against any nation. Yousuf really struggles on the bouncy pitches of Australia & South Africa, where he averages 33 and 26 respectively. Sangakkara? He averages 65 in Australia and 39 in South Africa. If he has one fallow venue, it's India, where he averages 25 to Yousuf's 34. Only 8 of Yousuf's 24 hundreds, 33.3%, have ended in victory for Pakistan. Look who he scored them against- 4 against WI, 2 against Bangladesh, 1 each against Zimbabwe and England. You don't need a great deal of imagination to realise that in 7 of those 8 instances, the team would have won anyway. Yousuf rarely scores big when the situation demands....and his big knocks seldom change the course of the match. A veritable minnow-basher. OTOH, 13 of Sangakkara's 19 hundreds have come in winning causes (68.4%), a proportion that's double Yousuf's. He may score tons less often than the prolific Pakistani, but he makes them count. The spread of tons is evenly balanced- 2 each against South Africa, India, West Indies, BD & Zim, and 1 each against Pakistan, England & NZ. If you delve further, you begin to see several occasions when he scored back to the wall hundreds. The one scored today in a match saving effort versus Pakistan stands out. Equally resplendent was the defiant 192 he scored in the 4th innings of the match against Australia at Hobart in 2007. All 3 of his losing tons came in the team 2nd innings, all away from home, boy on the burning deck stuff. Yousuf's corresponding metric? Zilch. But it is when you look at the split of Sangakkara's performance with and without wicketkeeping duties do you begin to realise the extent of his achievements. Since being unfettered by wicketkeeping duties, Sangakaara has scored at an amazing 78 runs per innings, dwarfing his 40.48 as the team keeper. One can only speculate what could have been had he always been a specialist bat. Two batsmen with 14000 runs between them. One a hall of fame-er in most people's books. The other? Just a very good batsman.

Superb piece. Well written.:two_thumbs_up:

[siddhu]

Two unrelated things, curiously similar in magnitude, happened during the final Test between Sri Lanka & Pakistan. Both events went almost unnoticed. When he scored his final run in the first innings of the just concluded Test, run out for 90, Mohammad Yousuf reached 7000 Test runs. The milestone had taken him 139 innings. In doing so, he became the 4th fastest ever to do so, behind Wally Hammond (131), Sachin Tendulkar(136) and Gary Sobers (138). The record lasted for precisely three days. The Sri Lankan captain reached the very same milestone when he scored his 35th run in his eventually unbeaten 2nd innings knock. The feat had taken him 138 innings, one less than Yousuf. The similarities don't end there. Both batsmen boast remarkably similar averages- Yousuf 54.86 versus Sangakkara's 55.42. Yousuf was the top ranked batsman in the world two weeks ago. Sangakkara has supplanted him to that peak today. Take a peep behind the rather grandiose curtain of career statistics and a different picture emerges. Yousuf has huge holes in his CV. He averages under 30 against Australia, South Africa and Sri Lanka. Sangakkara does not average below 40 against any nation. Yousuf really struggles on the bouncy pitches of Australia & South Africa, where he averages 33 and 26 respectively. Sangakkara? He averages 65 in Australia and 39 in South Africa. If he has one fallow venue, it's India, where he averages 25 to Yousuf's 34. Only 8 of Yousuf's 24 hundreds, 33.3%, have ended in victory for Pakistan. Look who he scored them against- 4 against WI, 2 against Bangladesh, 1 each against Zimbabwe and England. You don't need a great deal of imagination to realise that in 7 of those 8 instances, the team would have won anyway. Yousuf rarely scores big when the situation demands....and his big knocks seldom change the course of the match. A veritable minnow-basher. OTOH, 13 of Sangakkara's 19 hundreds have come in winning causes (68.4%), a proportion that's double Yousuf's. He may score tons less often than the prolific Pakistani, but he makes them count. The spread of tons is evenly balanced- 2 each against South Africa, India, West Indies, BD & Zim, and 1 each against Pakistan, England & NZ. If you delve further, you begin to see several occasions when he scored back to the wall hundreds. The one scored today in a match saving effort versus Pakistan stands out. Equally resplendent was the defiant 192 he scored in the 4th innings of the match against Australia at Hobart in 2007. All 3 of his losing tons came in the team 2nd innings, all away from home, boy on the burning deck stuff. Yousuf's corresponding metric? Zilch. But it is when you look at the split of Sangakkara's performance with and without wicketkeeping duties do you begin to realise the extent of his achievements. Since being unfettered by wicketkeeping duties, Sangakaara has scored at an amazing 78 runs per innings, dwarfing his 40.48 as the team keeper. One can only speculate what could have been had he always been a specialist bat. Two batsmen with 14000 runs between them. One a hall of fame-er in most people's books. The other? Just a very good batsman.

Excellent analysis... For some reason, Padosis consider MoYo as the greatest batsmen ever inspite of his YoYo behavior... :cantstop::cantstop: and Sangakarra as a non-entity... anyway, to each his own..

[Kohum]

Two batsmen with 14000 runs between them. One a hall of fame-er in most people's books. The other? Just a very good batsman.

very well worded piece Dhondy. :hatsoff:

[Dirty_South]

Very well written !

[Shehezaada]

that's true...Sangakarra and Yousuf are both classy batsmen but Sangakarra has produced in every country. Yousuf had one awesome year in which we broke the world record for runs and is kind of overrated because of that.

[Mr. Wicket]

Brilliant, Dhondy. I've always felt Yousuf is a pretender when people rank him in the echelon of top batsmen citing things like his high average and that record-breaking year. Such a shame that flat tracks, mediocre opposition and an ability to forget inconsistencies and weaknesses against good bowling attacks in better bowling conditions see him stand above batsman like Inzamam (who for me was a far superior batsman) in terms of raw averages/numbers, and ranked statistically alongside people like Sangakkara.

[Gambit]

It's a real indictment of the pitches these days when 'legends' like MoYo, Younis Khan, Jayawardhene average over 50. I will stick my neck out and say that even Hayden would have struggled to average over 50 in the 90s. Sanga is all class though. He simply owns Yousuf. PS - MoYo has 24 tons from 84 tests/140 innings. Dravid 26 from 134 tests/233 innings. :creep: :desiwoman:

[DomainK]

It's a real indictment of the pitches these days when 'legends' like MoYo, Younis Khan, Jayawardhene average over 50. I will stick my neck out and say that even Hayden would have struggled to average over 50 in the 90s. Sanga is all class though. He simply owns Yousuf. PS - MoYo has 24 tons from 84 tests/140 innings. Dravid 26 from 134 tests/233 innings. :creep: :desiwoman:

wow....this might just start a serious enthusiastic discussion in some other part of the web.

[Tapioca]

It's a real indictment of the pitches these days when 'legends' like MoYo, Younis Khan, Jayawardhene average over 50. I will stick my neck out and say that even Hayden would have struggled to average over 50 in the 90s. Sanga is all class though. He simply owns Yousuf. PS - MoYo has 24 tons from 84 tests/140 innings. Dravid 26 from 134 tests/233 innings. :creep: :desiwoman:

MoYo would have beaten Sobers and possibly even SRT if he was in the team in the "terrorist series" against Sri Lanka, and would have caught up with Dravid.

[patriot]

Shu vaat chhe..Dhondy saheb Actually the biggest HTB, is Mahela Jayawardene http://stats.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/player/49289.html?class=1;template=results;type=batting Averages 64.26 Home and just 41 away. A difference of 50 %. As classy as he looks when in full flow, the class oozes only on the shores of Colombo at the best of times.

[patriot]

PS - MoYo has 24 tons from 84 tests/140 innings. Dravid 26 from 134 tests/233 innings. :creep: :desiwoman:

If you look a little bit closer MOYO has 11 tons in 83 innings AWAY @ avg of 47 Dravid has 16 tons in130 innings AWAY @ avg of 57 Alot more closer on the century/innings ...and a massive gap in the averages if you take away the featherbeds of lahore and Multan from Moyo.

[iHammad]

Which is why I said -- All Current Paki Players SUCK ! and there was this Paki Moron who jumped all over me. Pakis should thank their lucky stars they dont play often enough and they play top teams even less frequently like AUS and RSA. Otherwise they would have ranked nothing more than 8th. They would have had such an Abysmal record they wouldnt have had a place to show their face

I prefer homo

[Guest Hiten.]

Which is why I said -- All Current Paki Players SUCK ! and there was this Paki Moron who jumped all over me. Pakis should thank their lucky stars they dont play often enough and they play top teams even less frequently like AUS and RSA. Otherwise they would have ranked nothing more than 8th. They would have had such an Abysmal record they wouldnt have had a place to show their face

You could always tone it down buddy. Hamo is no troll and a regular visitor. We need him around when we win the champions trophy and T20 WC next year so he can have some bitter pills to swallow :--D

[iHammad]

You could always tone it down buddy. Hamo is no troll and a regular visitor. We need him around when we win the champions trophy and T20 WC next year so he can have some bitter pills to swallow :--D

I always wish eaither India or PAkistan to win an ICC event! Im on a streak lately, 2007 and 2009 T20 WC's. Meri puri duain India aur Pakistan kay saath hain. I would also like to clarify that I don't hate India. But will never tolerate somebody saying all PAkistan's player suck. A few of them do, cough cough, Butt and Manzoor. But not all, otherwise they wouldn't be CHAMPIONS:winky: I have never made fun of, or said anything against India or an Indian cricketer. Except for Jadeja in the WC of course.:hatsoff:

[riya]

Yousuf's ICC ratings and his average are way too overrated.Those don't show the real picture.The guy is classy and easy on eyes to watch,but he is not all that.Excellent analysis by Dhondy.