The Hundred: 50 to 41

 50: Imran Khan

Martin Crowe may have enjoyed a great 1992 World Cup, but it was 39 year-old Imran Khan who ultimately held the trophy aloft. In the mid-‘70s I remember him as a top-class batsman for Oxford University and Worcestershire but he quickly developed his fast bowling with no adverse effect on his ability to score runs. I saw him only once, bowling Gooch for a duck at Chelmsford for the Pakistan tourists in ’87. In his thirties his pace and control were as superb as ever and history should recognise him as one of the top three Test all-rounders of the past fifty years. 

49: Tony Cottey

Harry Pilling may have been shorter but, at 5 foot 4, Tony Cottey was the superior batsman. He even played pro football for his home club, too (but not as West Ham’s Tony Cottee!). The son of Swansea was a vital cog in the Glamorgan middle-order through most of the Nineties, helping them to the County Championship in 1997. I enjoyed watching him at the crease, including his sprightly 20 not out in a 40-over rout of Hampshire at Sophia Gardens in ’95. He saw out his career at Sussex where he won another league title, but missed out on an England call-up. 

48: Glenn McGrath

OK, so he wasn’t as exciting to watch as fellow Aussies Lillee, Thomson, Johnson or Hughes, but Glenn McGrath was the finest seam bowler of his generation. His metronomic accuracy rendered him almost impossible to score from, and until Anderson pipped him recently, had more Test wickets than any other paceman in history. His career average of 21.64 is, however, considerably better than the Englishman’s and achieved in thirty fewer matches. I witnessed first-hand his 8-38 at Lord’s in 1997 when in his absolute pomp. 

47: Moeen Ali

I feel a bit sorry for Moeen Ali. As a youngster playing in the second flight initially for Warwickshire he won plaudits for his stylish batsmanship but it was only when he produced outstanding stats as a slow bowler in one Championship game (he was in my Fantasy side) that England began to take note. Forced to focus more on his twirling, his red-ball batting suffered although he remains devastating in limited over cricket. Observing him in an ODI at Cardiff I was touched by the huge affection in which he was held by fans, but only Pakistani fans! At least they recognise his talent. 

46: Curtly Ambrose

It was hard not to admire Curtly. You certainly couldn’t miss him. At 6 foot 8 his stride ate up the ground and his ability to routinely dig ‘em in just short of a length and extract unseemly bounce was legendary. I remember enjoying him tickle the ribs of Nasser Hussain at Chelmsford in ’91 with astonishing consistency and accuracy. I doubt that the Essex captain felt the same. Two years later he claimed 7-1 in a single spell against the Aussies, one of the most remarkable ever. Forget the extraordinary bowling figures: Curtly was the ultimate cool icon in a frantic world. 

45: Brian Lara

Had BC Lara been born twenty years earlier he’d probably have topped this list but his heyday fell in the era in which my exposure to cricket was abysmally low. However, in 1994, there was no avoiding him. In April he broke the world Test innings record then, at Warwickshire, he enjoyed a patch so purple Prince would have sued out of jealousy. He scored six centuries in seven innings before thrashing the highest score in any professional cricket, 501 not out. Sadly in the only time I saw him play in the flesh he made just , but merely the sight of his distinctive follow-through flourish made it memorable. 

44: Steve Smith

In contrast, Steve Smith’s batting technique seems to have been plucked from the pages of a joke book. And yet in the past few years, apart from his twelve months in enforced exile, the Aussie skipper has been the most prolific Test batsman in the world, keeping his nation in the 2019 Ashes series almost singlehandedly. Originally he was just a gangly leg-spinner who could bat a bit. I was in the Oval crowd in 2013 when Steve scored his maiden century with a straight six, and he hasn’t looked back. 

43: Mike Smith

Over the years there have been three of my namesakes in county cricket. MJK had been England’s captain but I recall his bespectacled face batting for Warwickshire in the ‘70s, while MJ opened for Middlesex for ages. Then in the Nineties came AM. This Mike Smith bowled left-arm fast-medium for Gloucestershire and, being only 5 foot 9, relied on skiddy swing to worry batsmen. His county form finally won him an Ashes appearance in ’97 but he went wicketless and that was that. An unsung hero of county cricket. 

42: Wasim Akram

There’s nothing unsung about Wasim Akram. He was initially the apprentice to Imran’s master before eclipsing him, at least in the one-day format. I once saw him accompany his old skipper against Essex, in which he produced a typical all-round performance. A devastating batsman he was primarily a fast left-arm bowler whose run-up suggested a befuddled schoolboy but once the ball left his hand….. The ‘Sultan of Swing’ could move it both ways, produce a brutal bouncer or a lethal yorker, making him one of the most complete fast bowlers in my lifetime. 

41: Allan Border

I wasn’t particularly enamoured of his legendary rude bloody-mindedness as Aussie captain but there’s no denying Allan Border’s effective innings building or his success at turning the Baggy Greens into the best cricketing outfit in the world. However, before he became the infamous grouch, I remember him best as a fresh 25 year-old whose refusal to lose his wicket made his team-mates look awful during the 1981 Ashes tour, where he averaged 59 batting at six. People remember Botham but I haven’t forgotten the gutsy little left-hander and his short-arm pull shots.

Pakistan on top of the world

Congratulations to Pakistan for assuming the official number one spot in Test cricket. The ICC rankings havet been around for only 13 years but I can’t recall a time when the nation were so prominent that they could have been unofficial Test worldbeaters, not even in the days of Imran Khan, Zaheer Abbas , Waqar Younis or Wasim Akram, Those pesky Aussies or West Indians were usually that bit more successful. Maybe in the late Eighties when Viv’s Caribbean cavaliers were losing their lustre and prior to Steve Waugh’s star men were coming together.

Mind you, I used the word ‘prominent’ rather than ‘dominant’ deliberately. Pakistan seemed to have risen up the rankings so far under the radar as to be flying at sea level. It wouldn’t have happened without Australia’s spectacular collapses against Sri Lanka, or the waterlogged outfield fiasco this week in Trinidad, where India were expected to put the Windies to the sword yet again. Nor of course had England dismissed Younis Khan much earlier in the Oval Test the other week and not allowed Pakistan to draw the series.

All ifs and buts. Just three points separate the top four nations so it could be all change come the winter, but let’s allow Pakistan the time to enjoy holding the ceremonial mace, because they have deserved it. The doubters point to the side’s inability to win in Australia or South Africa. But then ALL of Pakistan’s series are away; they haven’t been allowed to host a series for six years, and through no fault of the PCB.

That is also partly the reason they have played only six series in two years, while England, Australia et al are all cricketed out. Yet of those six, Pakistan have won four and drawn two, defeating England, Australia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh while giving the New Zealanders a run for their money in the desert.

So how have they achieved this historic rise? After the humiliation of the sordid match-fixing affair which led the captain and star bowlers to be not only banned but imprisoned, it looked hard to see Pakistan covering for years. However, Misbah-ul-Haq’s promotion to skipper has been the masterstroke. While his fellow batsmen have struggled for consistency, he and Younis have kept the runs flowing while their blend of seamers and spinners have done plenty of damage with the ball.

In the last eight series, spanning 22 matches, Younis has not averaged less than 48, and his career Test average remains stubbornly above 53. He is also a rarity in that he converts more than half his fifties into centuries and, as England re-discovered this month, is not averse to turning mere centuries into doubles. He is now 38, but his leader is more than three years his senior.

Misbah’s Test career started not long after Younis’s, but he has played a mere 65 matches. Apart from a sensational series against India in 2007, his batting seems to have improved since assuming the captaincy, and is always reliable. He managed just the one century in England this summer but what a vital one it was.

Azhar Ali, Asad Shafiq and ‘keeper Sarfraz Ahmed often chip in, too, while the likes of Junaid Khan, Sohail Khan and Wahab Riaz have often stuck to their guns with pace and skill. Losing their ace slowie Saeed Ajmal to the bent elbow police (probably with justification) must have been a blow but they merely introduced another enthusiastic 30-something spinner in Yasir Shah.

Misbah and the PCB have made some great strategic decisions, and Misbah knows how to win. He has even been brave enough to drop the veteran opener Mohammad Hafeez for the Oval, and of course they won with ease.

I don’t know how much importance the fan back home attach to the number one Test status. After all, they languish a paltry ninth in ODIs and not much better in T20 internationals, where New Zealand currently rule the roost. However, I hope it really does mean something because it is quite an achievement. India are either second or third in all formats so their old rivals should revel in being ahead in the five-day game.

Personally I look forward to seeing Pakistan play England in the fifth one-dayer in Cardiff next month. It’ll be the first time I’ve watched a Pakistani side in the flesh since Imran’s team came to Chelmsford twenty-five decades ago and Saeed Anwar stroked a sublime hundred. It would be nice to see Misbah’s team of youth and experience give England an exciting contest, hopefully to decide the series.

Pakistan off to a flyer in Dubai

There's been a lot of water under the bridge - and a lot of prison time served - since the last time Pakistan met Australia in a Test match. That came at Headingley when a side captained by Salman Butt and featuring other fine, upstanding cricketers like Danish Keneria, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir upset Ricky Ponting's tourists by three wickets. That was Pakistan's first win against these opponents since November 1995 and ended a sequence of thirteen consecutive defeats.

This week, Misbah-ul-Haq's men came to their adopted cricketing home of Dubai to face the number two side in the world - and enjoyed a convincing 221-run victory. Maybe it was the debut of someone called Imran Khan which evoked the spirit of probably Pakistan's greatest ever captain and all-rounder, but it was a useful combination of batting and bowling which did for an out-of-sorts Australia.

Michael Clarke had a miserable time on his return to the big time but Mitchell Johnson and David Warner did at least show some fight. Johnson and Siddle removed both Pakistan's openers for seven and Azhar Ali and Younis Khan had to knuckle down and rebuild the innings. Fortunately for them, they succeeded, laying the foundations for Misbah and Asad Shafiq to consolidate and then Sarfraz Ahmed to biff a run-a-ball century. Lyon and Smith took a pasting but credit to Johnson. His first-innings figures of 31-18-39-3 were astonishing for a strike bowler.

David Warner scored his ninth Test hundred in response but nobody else reached 40 as the Aussies subsided to 303 all out, 151 runs behind. Pakistan compounded their misery by declaring on 286-2 after Ahmed Shehzad and then Younis Khan reached three figures, the latter for the second time in the match. Zulfiqar Babar (aged 35 yet in only his third Test) and new boy Yasir Shah spun their side to victory on the final day, with only Smith and Johnson making 50. What Saeed Ajmal would have done we'll never know but Australia's spin duo of Steve O'Keefe (another debutant) and Nathan Lyon certainly struggled to extract the same from the pitch as the Pakistani twosome.

Clarke and Alex Doolan contributed only ten runs from their four attempts while Mitchell Marsh's red-ball debut in the green cap didn't exactly set the world alight. The Aussies need to restore their form in Tests quickly if they are to topple South Africa from their perch. Meanwhile, it's looking good for Misbah-ul-Haq. Another win next week would give them three in a row against Australia for the first time in more than three decades, in the era of Imran, Abdul Qadir, Zaheer Abbas and Javed Miandad. It will also mean a first series win since crushing England in the Middle East three years ago. Misbah is 40 now but, with Younis Khan's solid middle-order batting, he has done well to bring Pakistani cricket back into the fold. This may be a Test series but a defeat of Australia will bring renewed confidence going into the winter and the 2015 World Cup.