Khan to play his 100th Test on Thursday

24 Jun, 2015

ISLAMABAD: The 2009 Twenty-20 World Cup winning Captain Younis Khan's will be playing his 100th Test, when Pakistan take on Sri Lanka in the 2nd Test at Colombo (PSS) on June 25 (Thursday).

According to cricinfo.com, Younis has scored 8594 Test runs and is currently third on the list of highest run-scorers for Pakistan, just behind Javed Miandad (8832) and Inzamam-ul-Haq (8829). However, Miandad had scored only 7694 runs after 100 Tests, while Inzamam had only 7453 after his 100th. Younis' next Test against Sri Lanka will be the 100th of his career.

Younis has scored 29 hundreds and 29 fifties, which means he converts every second 50-plus score into a century. Only Matthew Hayden has more centuries (30 hundreds, 29 fifties) than Younis among batsmen who have scored as many (or more) hundreds than fifties.

Younis has scored five hundreds since October 2014 with only one corresponding fifty - three hundreds against Australia, one against New Zealand and one against Bangladesh. Younis is only batsman in Test history to score three back-to-back hundreds in the fourth innings of Tests. He did this during a two month period (Oct-Nov) in 2007 - two against South Africa and one against India.

During the Test series against Australia late last year, Younis became only the third batsmen after Bradman and Herbert Sutcliff to average more than 50 in each of the four innings of a Test (min. 10 knocks in each innings). However, his average in the third innings has now dropped slightly to 48.90.

Younis made his debut on 26 February 2000 against Sri Lanka in Rawalpindi and has scored 8594 runs in 99 Tests since then. However, despite scoring his runs at a commendable average of 53.71, Younis only finds himself at 10th on the list of highest run scorers since 26 February 2000. This is largely due to the fact that Pakistan play fewer Tests than most other nations. Pakistan have played 129 Tests in this period, the second-fewest among the top-eight teams with only New Zealand (125) having played fewer.

However, it is indisputable that Younis has been prolific in the 99 Tests he has played, something which is illustrated by the fact that he is second on the all-time list of players who have scored the most runs after 99 Tests, behind only Brian Lara (8833).

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2015

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