Pakistani Cricket - Mohammad Yousuf goes past Sir Viv Ricards record


A typically elegant, clipped on-drive for four off Corey Collymore took Mohammad Yousuf from 44 to 48 on the fourth day of the final Test between Pakistan and West Indies at Karachi. Sir Viv Richards's had scored 1710 runs in 1976, a memorable run during which he scored two double-hundreds against England in England and the closest anyone had come to it since was Ricky Ponting in 2005, with 1544 runs.

A modest raise of the bat by Mohammad Yousuf acknowledged that the drive took him past one of the longest-standing records in cricket, of most runs in a calendar year.

Mohammad Yousuf started his run with two hundreds in the home series against India. He only played a solitary Test in Sri Lanka, personally an unmemorable one, but a double-century at Lord's sparked off a stunning second half of the year.

2 more hundreds came from the remaining three Tests in England, including a 192 at Headingley. He finished the year with three hundreds in as many Tests against the West Indies at home.

During the course of this great run, a few more records fell. His 1st innings hundred at Karachi meant that he had scored 8 Test hundreds just this year alone, beating the previous best of seven, held jointly by Vivian Richards and Aravinda de Silva od Sri Lanka. By scoring 5 hundreds in five consecutive Tests, he also became only the third man in the history of cricket, along with Jacques Kallis and Sir Don Bradman (six hundreds in six Tests) to do so.

And just before he went past Viviab Richard's score, he had also glided past Zaheer Abbas's record for the most runs made by a Pakistani batsman in a three-Test series. Zaheer Abbas had made 583 runs against the visiting Indian side in 1978-79.

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