The Yo-Yos New Jobs

Mohammad Yousuf was a late signee for Lancashire this season as he was brought on board when Brad Hodge left for 5 weeks to join the Kolkata Knight Riders.

Yousuf was supposed to be there for only 5 weeks but got his contract extended as Hodge got called up for Australian duty in the Caribbean.

Yesterday Yousuf flew out of England to join the Pakistani squad to tour Bangladesh for the ODI series.

Though, not before scoring an unbeaten double century.

Mohammad Yousuf hit an unbeaten 205 in Lancashire's championship match against Yorkshire.

Lancashire had sent a request to the PCB for Yousuf's services for longer, however the PCB disallowed the request as they wanted to take a "full strength" squad to Bangladesh.

Yousuf should be back at Lancashire after the Tri Series / Asia Cup in a months time.

The PCB had faced some embarassment recently when Nasim Ashraf had announced that Younis Khan would be joining Western Australia for this season's Pura Cup, only for a WA official to come out and say that they had made no offer to Younis.

Later on it turned out that it was South Australia who had made the offer and Younis had accepted.

What I find funny though is that Cricinfo's headline reporting this news says "Younis Khan agrees to help out South Australia."

Now my friend over at Cricket with Balls tells me that South Australia has the weakest batting line up in Australian State Cricket.

Thats fine, but do they really expect Younis Khan to help them out?

Mark Sorell, the SA coach sure does.

But how?

Don't get me wrong, I think Younis is a great test batsman. He has played numerous match winning and match saving test innings. He averages almost 50 in tests and along with Inzamam and Yousuf had / has been the main stay of Pakistan's middle order for almost a decade now.

But Younis is an unorthodox batsman. He doesn't have a sound technique. He plays his shots away from his body. He drives of the back foot, he pulls with his feet off the ground, he plays cuts of the front foot, he plays reverse sweeps in test matches.

So how is this man going to help the South Australians?

One half of the Yo-Yos excelled in his new job, how will the other one do?

Hodge's Loss is Yousuf's Gain

Or is it?

Lancashire have lost Brad Hodge for 5 weeks to the Kolkata Knight Riders. But they have managed to procure the services of Mohammad Yousuf for that period since he's not eligible to play in the Indian Premier League.

Till only last year cricketers used to jump at the opportunity to play country cricket, not only for excercising their sport during the off season but also for those extra dollars, or rather pounds to be economically correct.

Today, however, with the emergence of the IPL and top notch dollars associated with it, playing county cricket has become the 2nd best option.

Would Yousuf have been available for Lancashire had one of the francises roped him in? Obviously not.

Hodge is going to miss 5 weeks to play in the IPL. David Hussey is already missing the county season. Shane Warne announced his retirement from county cricket despite being under contract to Hampshire for another year or two.

Moreover, this doesn't apply to international players alone. England and Hampshire's own Dmitri Mascharenas has joined the Rajhastan Royals for 5 weeks giving his home county season a break.

ECB better hurry with that EPL or they may lose a lot more as I hear that next year's IPL is scheduled around the same time. Plus Peiterson and some others are itching to play for some Indian teams.

Well, at the end I guess Mohammad Yousuf will be happy to be playing a form of the game he's good at. But he'll still be rueing his chances of making those dollars in hundreds of thousands.