Saqlain: We should never have written off Younus Khan
Pakistan and Surrey bowling great Saqlain analyses the key points of the final Test
So, the Test series is over and Pakistan ended it with what turned out to be a convincing win. Credit has to go to Younus Khan and Sohail Khan who earned the side the draw with victory at The Oval.
Sohail bowled well to take five on the first day, while Younis was majestic on the Saturday to compile a wonderful double century and really bat England out of the game.
Before the series, a lot of pundits were saying that Pakistan would lose the Test series badly but they showed in the first Test that this would not be the case. When the team started losing again, people were saying their predictions were right, but 2-2 was a fair result in the end.
Yasir Shah came back into form at The Oval. It had looked like he had lost his touch and that England had worked him out following his success at Lord’s, but he managed to execute his game plan superbly in the final Test. Maybe he just enjoys London!
He was under huge pressure to perform after the second and third Tests and there was even talk that he would retire.
He was back to his best though in England’s second innings with Alex Hales and James Vince both undone by him.
He capitalised on the momentum that Younus and the others had built with the bat. Mohammed Amir, Yasir and Sohail Khan batted almost 30 overs between them and that sucked the life out of England. Sarfraz Ahmed also batted really well and the 200 lead was always going to be too much.
The win means Pakistan are now second in the world Test rankings and it shows that Misbah-ul-Haq is working wonders as captain. He has been getting a lot of criticism recently but whatever he’s doing, he’s doing right.
India lead the rankings and Sri Lanka whitewashed Australia in their Test series. Asian cricket is dominating the world! We know it’s difficult for teams to visit Asia and England will find this winter extremely tough.
England face Bangladesh first and that will not be as easy as most people think.
Pakistan toured Bangladesh last year, and while we won the two-Test series 1-0, Bangladesh went on to win every limited-overs game.
When I was working with Bangladesh, I saw that they had a really good idea of how to play home conditions. Tamim Iqbal hit a double century in that Test series and will be one England will be keen to get out early.
I’m sure both India and Bangladesh will look to attack Moeen Ali, just like Younus did in the latter part of his innings, hitting a few wonderful sixes.
That never allowed Moeen to settle and that has been the plan all series, and was in the UAE, too.
That will be the same in the ODI series which begins next week, and Pakistan will be confident going into that series.
It is a completely different format, but morale is high and it should be an interesting couple of weeks to end the English summer.