Yousuf feels more matured, disciplined
From Our Sports Reporter

MULTAN—Pakistan’s prolific batsman Mohammad Yousuf said he owed his batting success to his conversion to Islam — and support from his captain Inzamam-ul-Haq.
“The maturity and discipline in my batting is because of Almighty Allah’s blessings and I have been more mature and disciplined since I started offering prayers five times a day,” Yousuf told on Friday.
The elegant 32-year-old batsman, formerly known as Yousuf Youhana, converted to Islam from Christianity last year and now sports the longest beard in a team that is already full of devout believers.
Yousuf climbed to second place in the International Cricket Council (ICC) player rankings for Test batsmen after his 192 against the West Indies in the first Test at Lahore, which Pakistan won on Tuesday.
The ICC said Yousuf had amassed the most ratings points of any Pakistani batsman in history, breaking the 900 barrier for the first time and surpassing former great Javed Miandad’s highest ranking of 885, achieved in February 1989. “It is in itself an achievement that now I am number two in the batsmen’s rankings. I am very happy that my runs are made for my team and Inzamam supports me a lot,” said Yousuf.
He is already the world’s leading run-scorer in the calendar year, with 1,315 runs from only nine matches. The total includes six hundreds, one of them the 202 he made against England at Lord’s in July this year.
Yousuf overtook Indian captain Rahul Dravid with his knock in Lahore and is behind only Australian captain Ricky Ponting in the ICC batsmen’s list.
Inzamam hailed Yousuf’s achievements and said he was a team man to the core.
“Yousuf has been playing at his best. I rate him a better batsman than Ponting and Dravid. He is a class act,” said Inzamam.
Inzamam last month dismissed concerns about the increased influence of Islam on Pakistan’s cricketers, saying he never forced anyone to pray or grow a beard.
He was reacting to comments by the country’s cricket chief Nasim Ashraf that players should not feel under pressure to be religious, and there should be a balance between their faith and sporting activities.
Yousuf has 5,929 runs in 71 Tests and needs another 71 runs to reach the 6,000-run mark, a feat he could achieve in the second Test between Pakistan and the West Indies, which starts here on Sunday.
Mohammad Yousuf has never had it quite so good. In the first Test of the series against West Indies, he stroked a glorious 192, his sixth century in nine matches in 2006. That innings catapulted him to No.2 in the ICC ratings, next only to Ricky Ponting, while his points tally of 901 is the highest ever achieved by any Pakistan batsman.
For much of his career, Yousuf has been seen as the second-best batsman in Pakistan, but this year he has made a strong claim to move up one notch. Inzamam-ul-Haq has only averaged 37.16 in the nine Tests he has played in this year, making Yousuf (average 93.92 in 2006) and Younis Khan (72.07) easily the two leading batsmen for their team.
Thanks to the deluge of runs he has scored recently, Yousuf has now moved up - at least average-wise - as not only Pakistan’s most successful batsman, but also among the top 12 all-time batsmen (among those who have played at least 50 Tests). As the table below shows, the list he is a part of is a very illustrious one. It’s also interesting to note the number of current batsmen who make it to the table - five of those 12 names belong to players who are currently active. Is that because the bowlers aren’t as good, the conditions are easier for batting, or are the batsmen actually so accomplished?
In his first three years in international cricket, Yousuf averaged just 40.37 in 27 Tests, but since in the six years starting from 2001, his average has topped 50 in every year except in 2004, when he average 41.46. (Click here for Yousuf’s career summary.) Since 2001, only Jacques Kallis and Ricky Ponting have a higher average than Yousuf’s 63.53.