Younis creates history helping Pakistan fight back

Younus Khan’s 34th Test century and his 146-run third-wicket stand with Azhar Ali helped Pakistan fight back in its first innings on the third day of the final Test in Sydney on Thursday (January 5).

Scoring his first hundred in Australia means Younis is the first player to reach three figures in all 11 countries to have hosted Test cricket.

On the second day of the third Test match at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Pakistan scored 126 runs for the loss of two wickets.

Amidst all this chaos, Younis remained focused and went on to score his 34th Test ton.

Former Australia skipper Steve Waugh believes that Matthew Renshaw has what it takes to be successful in Test cricket in the long term. The only batsmen with more centuries than Younis are: Rahul Dravid (36), Kumar Sangakkara (38), Ricky Ponting (41), Jacques Kallis (45) and Sachin Tendulkar (51). Since Pakistan play most of their “home” Tests in the neutral venue of UAE following the refusal of global teams to tour the strife-torn nation due to security fears, the Pakistani right-hander has accumulated a total of 11 hundreds in the country.

“So many innings I have played with him.wouldn’t be possible without (his support)”.

Undoubtedly, Younis gets lost in the shuffle when Australians discuss modern greats to visit their shores – headlined by Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara and Jacques Kallis, who are all revered and respected Down Under.

Misbah was disconsolate following the Melbourne second-innings debacle on good batting surface that had seen the teams score a total of 1,067 first-innings runs.

Australia has hinted it will again choose not to enforce the follow-on should Pakistan be dismissed early on day four of the third Test at the SCG.

Josh Hazelwood (2-53) claimed both wickets to fall on day two when he had Sharjeel Khan caught at slip by Matt Renshaw for four and then trapped Babar Azam lbw for a duck four balls later to leave the visitors at 6-2. He has scored just 38 runs with a high-score of 18 at an average of 7.60.