Other than his running between the wickets (just ask Mohammad Yousuf), it is difficult to be anything but impressed with the batting of Salman Butt in the recent test matches against Australia both Down Under and now at Lord's.
Butt has been the only Pakistani batsman to shine at Lord's, scoring a fifty in both innings, and with Mohammad Yousuf retired and Younis Khan out of favour, now has an opportunity to become his country's best and most important batsman. Unlike his colleagues, Butt has displayed excellent judgement in when to defend and leave, or when to attack as he has done particularly well with Doug Bollinger.
All this does not correspond with his test stats though, which as we speak stand at a paltry average of 32.72 from 28 test matches with only three hundreds. Pretty poor for a test match opener. However against Australia, against whom Butt has now played a quarter of his tests, he has two hundreds, four fifties and an impressive average of 48.15. Considering Australia have been consistently the best side since Butt made his test debut in 2003, this is much more like it.
This latter stat tallies better with the batsman we have seen at Melbourne, Sydney, Hobart and now Lord's. He has also done well against England in the past, so it is all set up to be a big summer for Butt. Maybe now at the age of 25 and with the added responsibility of the vice-captaincy, Butt is ready to fully justify his obvious talent. By the looks of their brittle batting order, Pakistan desperately need this to be the case.
He seems to know his own game and has more patience than the rest of the team put together.
Good opening batsmen in other words.
Posted by: Vim | Friday, July 16, 2010 at 22:57
...and now likely to be captain Vim after Afridi has self-combusted
Posted by: The Reverse Sweep | Saturday, July 17, 2010 at 08:07