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Mohammad Yousuf’s remarkable feat of outscoring Sir Vivian Richards’s tally of 1710 runs in a calendar year by the comfortable margin of 78 runs is a record that will, in all probability, stand for a long long time on the record books. Former Pakistan captain Asif Iqbal, based in England, offered his sincere congratulations to the Pakistan ace, expressing the view that this would rank Yousuf with the all time greats and that it was a matter of immense pride for all Pakistanis that this record was now in Pakistani hands and hopefully there to stay.

Asif has sent a message to the PCB chief suggesting that the Board should institute an annual Mohammad Yousuf batting award to be given to the Pakistani cricketer getting the highest number of Test runs in a calendar year as a fit tribute to Yousuf’s great achievement.

Asked if he felt that Yousuf’s feat was in any way less than Richards’s in view of the superior bowling which some claim Richards had to face, Asif dismissed the idea as absurd.

The claim that Richards “had the edge” was made by West Indian commentator Ian Bishop who said that the bowlers Richards faced, including Lillee, Thompson, Bedi, Chandrashekhar and Venkataraghavan, were some of the best in the world, while those faced by Yousuf were, by implication, of lesser standard. The facts are as follows:

Richards’s run started with the fourth Test against Australia at Sydney which was played on 3,4,5 and 7 January, 1976. In the three Tests against Australia (out of a six Test series) that he played in the calendar year 1976, his total tally was 325 in six innings. Thus only 19 per cent of his total tally of 1710 for the year was scored against Australia. Out of the three Tests that count, Lillee did not play in one of them.

Sir Vivian then scored 556 runs against India at home in four Tests including three hundreds at an average of 92.6. India’s opening attack was carried by Madan Lal and Mohinder Amarnath who over four Test matches were asked to bowl only 98 overs among them with a tally of just four wickets between them.

Bedi, Chandrashekhar and Venkat were all towards the end of their careers and in a couple of years, all three were out of the Indian side. India did manage to win one Test but that was not through the efforts of its much vaunted spin attack, rather its batting which created a world record by chasing down what for a long time was the highest fourth innings run chase in history to score 406 for 4 to win the match, with Gavaskar and Vishwanath scoring centuries.

India’s opening attack was negligible and therefore it is arguable whether the Indian attack Sir Vivian faced was in any way superior to that faced by Yousuf.

With seamers like Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel, Sreesanth and Zaheer Khan around now to support top class spinners like Kumble and Harbhajan Singh, one would venture the opinion that the current Indian attack is certainly a more rounded one than the attack they took to the Caribbean in 1976, which was based entirely and almost exclusively on spinners, most of whom were on the journey downhill.

The bulk of Richards’s runs came against England against an attack featuring as its main lights John Snow on his last legs and playing three out of the five Tests, and Bob Willis who played in only the last two Tests. For the most part the England attack was carried by the likes of Mike Hendrick, Chris Old. Tony Greig, Derek Underwood, Pat Pocock, Mike Selvey and even our own Bob Woolmer.

This attack, though efficient, would probably not be rated as one of the most fearsome England have ever fielded and if anyone were to assert that between them and the current England attack there would not be much more than the toss of a coin, he would have a point. Sir Vivian made his 829 runs in one of the finest English summers on record while Yousuf made his in a more typical English summer; Richards had batsmen of such outstanding calibre as Fredricks, Greenidge, Kallicharan and Lloyd to support him while Yousuf has for the most part been part of a lineup in which an opening stand of 25 is considered as something of a bonus.

None of this, of course, means that Yousuf is in any way a better batsman than Richards or vice versa. Both are geniuses in their own way and the comparison between two players separated by three decades is really an exercise in complete futility — which makes one wonder why such an exercise would ever be undertaken.
Source:The News