Younis Khan and the Burden of Being Unbeautiful

  In the early 2000s, Pakistani cricket still believed in romance. It believed that batting was an act of beauty before it was an act of survival. The nation’s imagination was shaped by cover drives that lingered in the air, wrists that seemed to bend time, and batsmen who looked born, not built. The elegance of Mohammad Yousuf (then Yousuf Youhana), the audacity of Imran Nazir, and the lingering ghosts of Zaheer Abbas and Saeed Anwar defined what Pakistan wanted its heroes to look like.

Into this aesthetic ecosystem walked Younis Khan, and he did not belong.

He was awkward where Pakistan preferred elegance, rigid where it sought fluidity, uncertain where it demanded instinct. His backlift rose from improbable angles, his footwork often appeared hesitant, and his defensive technique offended the purists. To a cricketing culture that valued poetry, Younis wrote in prose functional, dense, and unadorned. He was not hated; he was worse. He was misunderstood.

And in Pakistan, misunderstanding is often more damaging than failure.

A Nation’s Bias: Why Younis Was Never Loved Early

Pakistan does not merely watch cricket, it aestheticises it. Batsmen are judged not only by runs but by how those runs are scored. A loose drive forgiven for its beauty; an ungainly block questioned for its intent. Younis, in this context, was burdened from the start. His innings rarely flowed. His runs did not come in bursts that lifted crowds. They accumulated slowly, stubbornly, without spectacle.

Early failures compounded the problem. He did not arrive fully formed, nor did he immediately justify his place with defining performances. Critics labelled him technically deficient, temperamentally uncertain, a stopgap rather than a solution. Even neutral observers sensed a collective impatience when he walked to the crease—an unspoken question hovering: Why him?

What Pakistan missed was that Younis was not auditioning for admiration. He was preparing for endurance.

The Shift: From Aesthetic Failure to Existential Strength

Younis Khan did not reinvent his technique; he reinvented his relevance.

The turning point in his career was not a stylistic transformation but a psychological consolidation. As others chased fluency, Younis learned control. As batting became increasingly aggressive, he mastered resistance. Over time, he evolved into something Pakistan had rarely celebrated but desperately needed: a batsman for collapse, crisis, and consequence.

Nowhere was this clearer than in the fourth innings of Test matches—the most unforgiving arena for a batsman. Chasing targets with deteriorating pitches, mounting pressure, and the weight of inevitability, Younis did not just survive; he dominated. Five fourth-innings centuries. An average above 57. A body of work that places him among the greatest pressure batsmen the format has known.

The 2015 run chase in Sri Lanka was not merely a victory; it was a thesis statement. It announced that this ungainly batsman, once tolerated at best, was Pakistan’s most reliable last man standing.

Adversity as Architecture

Younis Khan’s greatness cannot be separated from his suffering. His career unfolded amid extraordinary personal and professional turbulence. The tragic death of Bob Woolmer, in which he was unfairly scrutinised. Internal politics that culminated in his suspension in 2010. The loss of close family members. Repeated exclusions, humiliations, and returns.

These were not footnotes; they were structural forces shaping his character.

Where others fractured, Younis hardened not into bitterness, but into resolve. Each setback refined his relationship with failure. He learned not to react to noise, not to internalise rejection, not to seek validation from applause. His was a self-sustaining belief system, forged in isolation.

This is why his success feels heavier than statistics. It was not inherited; it was earned repeatedly.

The Mind Over the Method

Technically, Younis Khan remained imperfect. Mentally, he was unassailable.

His career validates a central truth of elite sport: technique is a tool; temperament is the engine. As Rahul Dravid once noted, performance is the product of how effectively the mind deploys skill under stress. Younis embodied this principle. He adapted endlessly altering tempo, shot selection, risk appetite not because of instinct but because of clarity.

His numbers over 10,000 Test runs at 52, a triple century, leadership in Pakistan’s 2009 World T20 triumph are impressive. But numbers alone do not explain why Younis mattered. He mattered because he redefined what success could look like for Pakistan cricket: not beautiful, but unbreakable.

A Reluctant Icon for an Uncomfortable Truth

Younis Khan was never Pakistan’s idealised hero. He lacked Yousuf’s grace, Afridi’s electricity, Miandad’s streetwise genius. Yet he offered something more durable a blueprint for survival in chaos.

In a cricket culture seduced by brilliance, Younis forced a reckoning with endurance. He reminded Pakistan that greatness does not always announce itself with flair. Sometimes it arrives quietly, absorbs punishment, and outlasts everyone else.

His journey from ridicule to reverence, from aesthetic failure to moral authority is not merely a cricketing story. It is a lesson in persistence, in dignity under doubt, and in the power of refusing to disappear.

Younis Khan did not fit Pakistan’s dream of a batsman.

In the end, he became Pakistan’s conscience.

And that may be his greatest innings of all.

Mahela Jayawardene: A Portrait of Elegance and Innovation

 

The first time I witnessed Mahela Jayawardene in action was in the midst of a tense one-day tri-nation tournament in Australia, a match that remains etched in the memories of cricket fans. While much of the focus that day was on the infamous clash between Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga and Australian umpire Ross Emerson, there was a subplot unfolding quietly in the background—a subplot that would come to define Sri Lankan cricket for the next two decades.

In the face of a seemingly hopeless situation, a young Mahela Jayawardene remained poised, composing one of the most memorable knocks of his early career. This innings, a century that steered Sri Lanka to a dramatic victory, marked my introduction to a player who, even at that stage, displayed all the hallmarks of a future great. In that moment, I saw in him the potential to carry forward the legacy of Aravinda de Silva and Arjuna Ranatunga—both heroes of Sri Lanka's cricketing past—and indeed, Jayawardene would not disappoint.

The Elegant Craftsman: Mahela as a Batsman

From that point on, Jayawardene's career unfurled with remarkable consistency, as he established himself as one of the most elegant batsmen of his generation. In an era dominated by brute force and power-hitting, Jayawardene’s approach to batting stood in stark contrast. He was an artist with the bat, crafting innings with a level of finesse that few could match.

There was a fluidity to his strokes that could captivate even the most hardened critics of modern cricket. His drives through the covers—delicate yet authoritative—his wristy flicks off his pads, and the elegant cuts behind the stumps were the kinds of shots that made watching him bat feel like witnessing a masterwork. Jayawardene’s supreme hand-eye coordination allowed him to play the ball late, one of the key skills that made his batting so effective. He was a man capable of playing every shot in the book with grace, and his ability to manoeuvre the ball to all corners of the field only added to the beauty of his craft.

But beyond the aesthetic pleasure his batting provided, it was his consistency and ability to anchor innings that made him indispensable to Sri Lankan cricket. Whether it was in a pressure-filled chase or during a difficult Test match, Jayawardene’s temperament and technique were his greatest assets.

A Captain for the Ages

While his batting artistry captivated the world, it was Mahela Jayawardene's captaincy that transformed him into one of Sri Lanka’s most revered figures in cricket history. His ascent to the role of captain in 2006, under Marvan Atapattu’s injury during the England tour, was not just a case of circumstance but one of destiny. Sri Lanka’s cricketing landscape required stability, and Jayawardene—a figure often described as quiet and unassuming—was ready to take up the mantle.

In the opening Test at Lord’s, Jayawardene’s leadership was immediately put to the test. With Sri Lanka staring down the barrel of an impending defeat, Jayawardene rose to the occasion most remarkably. His 119 in the second innings was not just a captain’s knock—it was an act of defiance, a refusal to let the team succumb to the weight of defeat. The innings turned the game on its head, transforming a first-innings deficit of 359 runs into an overnight lead, and ultimately helping Sri Lanka escape with a draw. In that moment, Jayawardene’s influence as a leader was undeniable. It wasn’t just his technical ability that made him a great captain, but his unshakable calm under pressure, his ability to inspire his team, and his intuitive grasp of the game.

Innovative Leadership: The Brain of Mahela

As a captain, Jayawardene’s approach was marked by an uncanny ability to innovate. Unlike many captains who adopt a reactive style, Jayawardene was a proactive strategist. He would set unorthodox fields, make sudden and bold bowling changes, and even shuffle the batting order with an almost instinctive sense of what was required in the moment. His captaincy was a blend of tactical sharpness and bold decision-making, and his ability to think several moves ahead was a characteristic that set him apart.

Even when he was not at the helm, Jayawardene’s influence remained strong. His cricketing acumen was always available for the captains who followed him—Kumar Sangakkara, Angelo Mathews, and others—offering not just tactical advice but a guiding philosophy of leadership. His impact was as much intellectual as it was emotional; he was a man who understood the game deeply and knew how to nurture the players around him.

As former Sri Lankan coach Paul Farbrace once noted, Jayawardene's influence extended beyond his on-field exploits. “Everything he does is always for the team and for Sri Lankan cricket. There is not a selfish bone in his body. He’s a world-class player and a world-class person." These words speak to the essence of Mahela Jayawardene not just as a cricketer, but as a leader and a mentor. His selflessness and commitment to the collective cause are what made him not just a captain but a cornerstone of Sri Lanka’s cricketing identity.

Legacy and Conclusion

As Jayawardene prepares to retire from international cricket, following the ongoing Test series against Pakistan, it is hard to imagine Sri Lankan cricket without his presence. His departure will leave a void that will not easily be filled—on the field, of course, but perhaps more importantly, in the cricketing brain that guided and inspired generations.

While we will undoubtedly miss his elegant batting, it is his sharp cricketing mind, his ability to think outside the box and his unwavering leadership that will be remembered as his lasting legacy. For Sri Lankan cricket, Jayawardene was not just a player; he was an institution. In an era where cricketing genius is often celebrated for its raw power, Mahela Jayawardene’s true genius lay in his ability to blend elegance with innovation, and it is this that will ensure his place among the all-time greats of the game.

Thank You

Faisal Caesar