Record-breaking batsman Mohammed Yousuf, who said on Monday he was bowing out of international cricket, is one of Pakistan’s most enigmatic players whose life story is one of rags to riches.
Yet it remains unclear whether his emotional announcement on Monday that he was bowing out of the international game was really the final curtain call.
If close friends are to be believed, Yousuf is now committed to preaching Islam and will have no time for the sport at an international level.
But if his “for the time being, I am retiring” comment is heeded, Monday’s announcement could well be just another throw of the dice.
Born to a poor Christian family in the slums of Lahore, his has been a tale of rags to riches.
Initially taken on as an apprentice at a tailor shop, it was pure luck that a local team plucked Yousuf from oblivion.
After a disappointing Test debut in 1998, he slowly made his mark at international level.
Yousuf credited his record-breaking Test run spree in 2006, a year after he converted to Islam, to his change of faith, but experts believe he had long possessed the talent.
He clocked up 1,788 runs in that calendar year, surpassing Viv Richards’ 1,710 in 1976 — a new world record.
But controversy has never been far away.
In 2002, he was sent home from a tour in Kenya when he disobeyed the then-captain Waqar Younis.
Overlooked for the captaincy after Pakistan’s exit from the 2007 World Cup, Yousuf fell out with new skipper Shoaib Malik.
Pakistan dropped Yousuf for the inaugural World Twenty20 in 2007 and so he defected to the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL).
Local media reported that Yousuf took a huge sum of money from the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to abandon the ICL and play again for the national team. But barely a year later, he left again to rejoin the rebel league.
But in February last year Yousuf was again allowed to play for Pakistan.
Perhaps the final nail in his coffin was hammered in this month when the PCB said “infighting” between Younus Khan and Yousuf had brought down “the whole team” on a disastrous tour of Australia.
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