A Creative Mohammed Yusuf

Well this is one such dialogue that every cricket captain in the world is found to say once his team is found to be defeated. And the Pakistani captain-Mohammed Yusuf is no exception. However, his statement is another unique one for, his target is not the pitch, the opposition, the players of his team, absence of key players out of the lot many reasons that we have been coming across. Such creative reasons indeed deserves a pat on the back no matter what. The Pakistani captain Mohammed Yusuf blames the T20 format of the game for his team's test debacle against Australia.

This was a couple of days after Pakistan lost the first test to Australia at Melbourne by 170 runs.And this should according to me be no surprise because, hardly has any team beaten Australia in Australia. The most recent defeat that Australia suffered at home was against South Africa last year when the Proteas made it theirs 2-1. And before that, it was way back in 1992 that Australia lost a home test series against West Indies that was somewhere 16 years prior to the loss that was suffered at the hands of the Proteas. And one has to wonder as to how come the Pakistan captain starts blaming!

The fact is also that Pakistan has hardly played any tests be it at home or outside the same. The most recent test series that Pakistan played was against New Zealand that was leveled-thanks to the rain that hit the third test match in which New Zealand held an upper hand at Napier when the New Zealand team was set a target of 208 runs and the Kiwis had made it to 90-0 before the play was called off. And before that, Pakistan played a test series against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka (obviously) which Sri Lanka won 2-0. Oops! Pakistan have played a decent number of test matches in 2009 as compared to none in 2008.

However, if statistics are given a closer look at, Pakistan have played more number of test matches compared to T20 cricket. All T20 cricket that Pakistan played was the T20 world cup. If not for that mega event, the remaining T20 games stand as follows: 1 games each against Sri Lanka and Australia at UAE and 2 games against New Zealand. All of which Pakistan won rather convincingly. I guess that Mohammed Yusuf has mistaken his team's T20 success to be the reason for his team's test debacle. According to Mohammed Yusuf, a team that can outplay other teams in one format of the game cannot do so in other formats it looks like. This can be called as "Stupidity at its peak".