X-SQUARE: THE MISYOU FACTOR
It was a slog-sweep followed by a sweep of conventional variety that brought the curtain down on two careers within minutes of each other. Still, even if Misbah ul Haq and Younis Khan had the liberty to write their own script for the swansong, they would not have been able to do a better job of it than the manner in which it all came about: a thrilling finish on the right side of the line that separates success from the rest.
That the team was the first Pakistani outfit to register a series win in the Caribbean is hardly a thing to remember because of the net strength of the West Indian side, but it did provide a much-merited shade of symbolism to the era of Misbah’s captaincy. He ended up as the longest-serving captain with 56 Tests, and the most successful with 26 wins. Let’s leave for some other time — maybe for the historians of tomorrow — the quantity-versus-quality debate which in effect is a Misbah-versus-Imran debate.
On his part, Younis became on tour the first to cross the hallowed 10,000-run mark in terms of career tally, and finished off the last Test becoming the only Pakistani fielder to have ever taken 10 catches in a series. Interestingly, Pakistan’s top three run-getters — Younis, Javed Miandad and Inzamamul Haq — are also the top catchers in that same order with 139, 93 and 81 against their names.
Statistics can bring into stark relief the impact that Misbah ul Haq and Younis Khan had on Pakistan cricket
The matter of personal glory apart, the departure of Misbah and Younis — aptly and popularly titled ‘MisYou’ by social media — is an ominous sign for Team Pakistan. While the fans of Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle may continue to fight over the proprietary rights, we don’t seem to be in a position to move on lightly, saying “the graveyards are full of indispensibles.”
The MisYou element was unique in terms of the team’s dependence for such a long time. Let’s take the statistical route to see how seriously lopsided it was. Without taking anything from the enormity of their numbers, the fact that the two together scored 15,321 runs, including 44 centuries and 72 fifties, at a cumulative average of 50.06 per innings, means next to nothing.
To have any chance of quantifying the dependence factor, we need to set the cut-off date at Nov 12, 2010, that marks the beginning of not just Misbah’s captaincy tenure, but also his Test career in practical terms — he had been on the sidelines because Inzamam, Mohammad Yousuf and Younis were holding the middle order together till then. The first had gone into retirement in the wake of a reported deal with the PCB, Yousuf was elbowed out, and Salman Butt, the captain had committed hara-kiri in England. This is how Misbah got his foot in the door and joined Younis, the survivor.