Who Are Pakistan?
Pakistan was first granted Test status in 1952 and played their first Test match that year against India at the Feroz Shah Kotla Ground in Dehli, India. In total, Pakistan have played 444 Test matches which have included 145 wins, 135 losses and 163 draws. The Team is currently coached by former spin bowler Saqlain Mushtaq and captained by Babar Azam.
Pakistan have been given various nicknames of the years such as, the “Shaheens” (falcons), the “Green Shirts”, the “Men in Green”, and the “Cornered Tigers”. Traditionally Pakistan has been viewed as a strong but unpredictable team. The team has consisted of extremely talented players but is alleged to display a lack of discipline which has made their performance inconsistent at times. However, in recent years, the current national Test team is challenging these traditional views.
Pakistan have had some great players over the years, the likes of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Imran Khan, Younis Khan, Javed Miandad, Inzamam-ul-Haq, and Mohammed Yousuf. Whilst current players like Babar Azam and Shaheen Shah Afridi will hope to build successful careers of their own. Furthermore, Pakistan’s rivalry with India is arguably not only the biggest cricketing rivalry in the world but possibly in all of sport.
The Test History of Pakistan
Pakistan has had turbulent Test history over the years, which has included a ball tampering scandal in 2006, a spot-fixing scandal in 2010 (which saw three of its players be found guilty and sentenced to prison), and after a terrorist attack on the touring Sri Lankan cricket team in Pakistan in 2009, Pakistan was unable to host Test matches for ten years. Test cricket has now successfully returned to Pakistan.
However, Pakistan have enjoyed great success over the years. The series win over rivals India in 1988 is considered one of the best Pakistan-India series of all time. Whilst later that year Pakistan were rated as the number 1 Test team in the world, which is considered to be one of the greatest moments in their history.
This was arguably better more recently, when Pakistan, once again, rose to be the number 1 ranked Test team in the world in 2016 under the leadership of Misbah-ul-Haq. The crowning moment came when they drew to England 2-2 in a four match Test series in England which was also considered to be a great achievement in its own right.
Who Holds the Test Records for Pakistan?
Pakistan have produced some of the greatest fast bowlers of all time and their records for Pakistan support it. Wasim Akram is one of those and he has been Pakistan’s most successful wicket-taker with 414 wickets in 104 matches with 25 five-wicket hauls. Waqar Younis and Imran Khan were also mightily impressive, taking 373 wickets from 87 matches and 362 wickets from 88 matches, respectively.
Younis Khan is Pakistan’s most successful batsmen, being only the 13th batsmen in Test history to score more than 10,000 runs. Khan scored 10,099 runs in 213 innings which included 34 hundreds. Javed Miandad and Inzamam-ul-Haq are Pakistans second and third highest run scorers, managing 8,832 and 8,829 runs, respectively.
Whilst Mohammed Yousuf, holds the Test cricket record for most runs in a calendar year. In 2006 Yousuf scored 1,788 runs in 19 innings with an average of 99.33 and included nine hundreds.
