Pakistan take an early lead in the Investec Test Series against England. With the second Investec Test Match scheduled to commence tomorrow, we take a look at this week’s key battle – Stuart Broad, fourth best Test bowler in the world, and Younis Khan, currently ranked seventh best batsman.
Younis Khan – lynchpin of Pakistan batting line-up
One of Pakistan’s modern batting greats, Younis Khan is the kind of man who responds best in adversity. He has played 105 matches for his country, scored a massive 9,174 runs and is one of the few players who has a Test average of over 50. He has also scored a triple-hundred against Sri Lanka in 2009, hit a famous double-hundred against India in India, and a brilliant rear guard partnership to clinch Pakistan’s 3-0 Test whitewash over England, leave no doubt about his quality and class.
[quote cite=””]Younis Khan is on the verge of getting into the 10,000-run club and has been in some prolific form over the past two years, especially in Test matches.[/quote]
Since the drubbing in 2010, Pakistan haven’t lost a Test to England and have defeated them twice in their adopted home in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). They gained a measure of revenge for their 2010 humiliation with a 3-0 whitewash in 2012 and then beat England by a 2-0 margin when the two teams met late last year. Younis and Misbah-ul-Haq, team captain, continue to be the lynchpins of this Pakistan batting line-up.
Younis Khan is on the verge of getting into the 10,000-run club and has been in some prolific form over the past two years, especially in Test matches. Over the past three years, i.e. in 2013, 2014 and 2015, Younis has scored 698, 1064, and 789 runs respectively, averaging 53.69, 66.50, and 60.69 respectively. He is already Pakistan’s most prolific run aggregator in Tests having surpassed Javed Miandad’s tally of 8,832 runs in October last year.
Stuart Broad – third Englishman to take 350 Test wickets
Whatever innocent impression might initially be given by his blond hair and baby-faced good looks, there have been few feistier cricketers in England’s Test history than Stuart Broad. Broad’s combative fast bowling and volatile temperament has been one of his great strengths. Broad is currently ranked fourth best Test bowler in the world.
[quote cite=””]Broad’s combative fast bowling and volatile temperament has been one of his great strengths.[/quote]
Broad was already shaping up as the Next Big Thing of English cricket when he pushed his career into overdrive in a sensational spell of bowling in the fifth and decisive Ashes Test at The Oval in 2009. Broad was awarded the Man of the Match in the fifth Test of the 2009 Ashes series at the Oval, after figures of 5/37 in the afternoon session of the second day. On 30 July 2011, at the Nottingham Test match against India, he achieved a Test match hat-trick in the process gaining his then best Test figures of 6–46. As a batsman, he holds the second-highest ever Test score made by a number 9 after his 169, his first century in first-class cricket, against Pakistan in August 2010.
He took 7 for 72 in the first innings against West Indies at Lord’s in 2012, which made him only the eighth player to earn the distinction of being on two honours boards at the home of cricket. His four in the second innings made him at that time the first England bowler to take 10 wickets or more in a match there since Ian Botham in 1978. In his career to date, he has recorded 15 5-wicket hauls and two 10-wicket hauls and has established himself along with James Anderson as England’s dynamic duo which many batsman now fear.
See Younis Khan take on Stuart Broad at Edgbaston
These two world class players go head-t0-head this summer at Edgbaston in the third Investec Test Match of the Series – who will come out on top? Tickets are still available and can be purchased online by clicking here or calling 0844 847 1902.
