Hobart, January 17: The recent run-out debacle in the ongoing third Test here prompted Mohammad Yousuf to come out with remarks against teammate Salman Butt, but the Pakistan opener has denied hearing any such comments from his skipper, who, he said is like a elder brother to him.
However, Butt remained adamant that his running between the wickets should not dictate his Test future.
”If positions are affected by incidents like this, then I think not many cricket teams would survive,” Butt said.
”Misunderstandings happen.
”It’s very easy to sit out and watch and criticise people who are in the ground, but I think it’s very difficult for the guys who are performing inside.
”Sincerely I haven’t heard any (comments from Yousuf), but when he said it, maybe it’s because he is the best player in the side and the team needed him at the time. If he is furious that’s fine, because anybody in his place would have been like that, so I don’t mind even if he said something.
”Next time we need to be careful and be helpful to each other,” said the opener, who scored 102 before falling at the hands of part-time bowler Simon Katich yesterday.
Butt further said Yousuf is not only ”a captain or a senior player but like his elder brother”.
”Captain, senior player. Like elder brother.” The 25-year-old Butt further adviced his skipper to stop ”moaning” about what had happened on the day two of the match, and to move on as these are small things.
”I think we’ve played enough cricket not to think about these small things. ”OK, it’s happened. (Yousuf) is our best player, no doubt, and it would have been very good for us had he stayed in and scored a big hundred.
”But if something has happened, you can’t keep moaning about it, you have to carry on,” Butt was quoted as saying by ‘The Sydney Morning Herald’.
Yousuf blasted Butt as ”lazy” and said he was playing selfishly, not for the team, after being run-out in Pakistan’s first innings for just seven chasing a third run when he was forced to turn back as Butt had stopped after the second.
”He is a little lazy runner, everybody knows,” Yousuf said on Friday night. ”We are not playing for self, we’re playing for country. If I’m 35 years old and I get three runs, he is 25 years old, why not he take runs? ”Me and him are the same, 140 overs (of) fielding. We play for country here, not for self. (It is) just very sad because he’s just 25 years old and he can’t run.” Pakistan has already lost the three-Test series against 0-2 and are struggling at 103/4 on the fourth day today as it seems only rain can help them salvage their pride.
Meanwhile, Australian all-rounder Simon Katich said he was impressed with Butt’s response to his captain’s anger.
”It was interesting comments but he responded in the best possible fashion,” Katich said. ”He batted well and got a hundred, so that’s all you can ask of an opener. He would be disappointed there at a couple of run outs but that is the nature of cricket and sometimes there’s going to be misunderstandings.”
——Agencies