YOUNIS KHAN

Younis Khan is fearless, as befits his Pathan ancestry and will forever be remembered as the second Khan to bring home a world title for Pakistan: Younis was Pakistan's captain in the 2009 World Twenty20, leading a successful campaign with stark similarities to the one Imran Khan had led 17 years earlier. Younis retired from the format straight after, a graceful and dignified gesture from a complex but honest man.

It is as a batsman, and a fearless one, that he made his name first, playing with a flourish. He is especially strong in the arc from backward point to extra cover. He is prone to getting down on one knee and driving extravagantly. But this flamboyance is coupled with grit.

Though Younis was one of the few batsmen who retained his place in the team after Pakistan's disastrous World Cup campaign in 2003, he lost it soon after due to a string of poor scores in the home series against Bangladesh and South Africa. He came back for the one-day series against India, but failed to cement a place in the Test side. He is among the better fielders in Pakistan and he took a world-record four catches in one innings as substitute during Pakistan's demolition of Bangladesh in the 2001-02 Asian Test Championship.

But until his return to the side in October 2004, he wasn't a fixture. At the pivotal one-down, against Sri Lanka in Karachi, a century laid the groundwork for his emergence as a force in Pakistan cricket. He was the top run-getter in the disastrous 3-0 whitewash in Australia immediately after and on the tour of India, for which Younis was elevated to vice-captain, he blossomed. After a horror start to the series he came back strongly, capping things off with a match-winning 267 in the final Test. He credits the late Bob Woolmer, to whom he was close, for the turnaround in his career.

Since then, barring minor troughs such as the 2005-06 series against England at home, his career has been one elongated peak, scoring hundreds against India and England for fun and becoming Pakistan's most successful one-down in recent memory. More importantly, the tour to India also showcased his potential as a future captain of Pakistan and his energetic and astute leadership has impressed many people. As captain in Inzamam's absence he led the side to a disastrous loss against the West Indies in 2005 but also to a memorable win against India in Karachi in January 2006.

He blotted his book by suddenly resigning from the captaincy in Inzamam's absence for the Champions Trophy 2006, only to return a day later and lead a scandal-afflicted side to a disappointing first round exit. He was the favourite to take over the captaincy after Pakistan's ignominous World Cup ouster in 2007 but he turned it down, citing mental strain and decided to honour his commitment with Yorkshire by making himself unavailable for Pakistan. In January 2009, however, the PCB came calling a third time, after Pakistan's disastrous home ODI series against Sri Lanka, and appointed him captain in place of Shoaib Malik. Within a few months, with the Twenty20 win, Younis was looking a natural leader.

But the peace, once again, did not last long and several senior players in the team expressed misgivings over Younis' leadership. Things came to a head against New Zealand in Sharjah, after which he announced his resignation from the top-job and sought a break from the team for the tour down under. He was included in the ODI team, midway through a disastrous tour, but struggled for form and runs. His career hit its biggest controversy in March 2010 when, along with Mohammad Yousuf, he was banned by the PCB from all Pakistan teams, for causing infighting within the team, in effect ending his career. 

SANATH JAYASURIA

It's hard to imagine that for the first half-decade of his career, Sanath Jayasuriya was considered a bowler who could bat a bit. Think of him now and you think of forearms straight out of a smithy, shots hammered through point and cover and scythes over the leg side. You recall a man who could score equally briskly in every form of the game, who slashed and burned his way through bowling attacks. As with anyone who relied so much on extraordinary hand-eye coordination, there were troughs and lean times, but just as the obit writers got busy, he would produce another innings of supreme power. The bowling, always canny and relying more on variations in pace than sharp turn, became the supporting act, though 420 international wickets should tell you that he was pretty adept at what he did.

Following Mark Greatbatch's success at the 1992 World Cup, most teams were rethinking the way they approached the one-day game and Jayasuriya, who had trawled the lower reaches of the middle order till then, had his first stint as opener during the Hero Cup in India in 1993. It was only during a home series against Pakistan the following year that he established himself in the role and by the time the World Cup rolled around 18 months later, he had already chalked up his first century in whites, a frenetic stroke-filled effort in Adelaide.

The years that followed were both prolific and successful. People remember Aravinda de Silva's magical innings from the semi-final and final of the 1996 World Cup but it was Jayasuriya's withering assaults that deflated India in Delhi and England in the last eight. Soon after, he began to exact as heavy a toll on Test attacks, scoring at such a pace that Muttiah Muralitharan and friends had ample time to work their way through opposition batsmen.

After Arjuna Ranatunga's ouster, there was a four-year stint as captain that ended with a semi-final appearance at the 2003 World Cup, and just as the whispers grew about diminishing returns with the bat, he had one of his most successful years in 2004. There was a retirement announcement in 2006, but he was back within weeks, and the walk off the Test stage came only 18 months later, after a typically cavalier innings in Kandy.

The one-day flame continued to burn bright, and took Sri Lanka to another World Cup final in 2007, and he was instrumental in the Asia Cup win of 2008, a couple of months after it had seemed that the selectors' axe had fallen for the final time. The Indian Premier League gave him a new platform to showcase his big-hitting talent, but failure to replicate the success of the first season in subsequent campaigns was the surest sign that time had finally caught up with a man who was still pounding out one-day hundreds at the age of 39.

GARY KRISTEN

Perhaps it was the hairstyle, but Gary Kirsten always seemed a little older than he was. Then again, it might just be that he became so established at the top of the batting order that it's almost impossible to think how South Africa would cope without him. It's probably fair to say that Kirsten was never blessed with the flair and the almost pure technique of his half-brother Peter. But when it comes to determination, the ability to concentrate for long periods and a burning desire to score runs, there was little to choose between them. A left-hander with a relatively unique technique, Kirsten simply worked out his strengths and weaknesses and based his game around them. In this respect he was probably the most organised batsman to play for South Africa since their readmission. Calm and level-headed, he brought a healthy degree of common sense to the art of batting, which possibly explains why off the field and in the dressing room the dafter side of his personality came out. Periodically, Kirsten endured patches when he persistently got out in similar fashion - chopping the ball on to his stumps, for instance, or getting himself caught down the leg side. Each time this happened, though, Kirsten worked through the problem, made the adjustments and played himself back into form. He enjoyed particular success on the sub-continent - where other players have floundered against the turning ball. Kirsten, though, was drawn on patience and soft hands to see him through. And if there was any player likely to score a big hundred, then it was Kirsten. His best of 275, a result of batting for over 14 and a half hours as South Africa followed on against England at Kingsmead in 1999-00, still stands as the second-longest innings (in terms of duration) in Test history. He then returned to haunt England in 2003 and gutsed out a crucial 130 in the Headingley Test, which South Africa won by 191 runs. His good form in that series persuaded him to postpone his retirement until the end of the New Zealand tour in 2003-04. Fittingly, he scored a century in the first Test of that series - his 99th - and scored a typically gritty 76 in his final game to help South Africa tie the series. After retiring, he spent some time with the Warriors as a consultant batting coach and, in 2006, set up his own academy in Cape Town. In December 2007, he signed a two-year deal to coach India and his role has been appreciated by many current and former Indian players. Under Kirsten, India moved to No. 1 in the ICC's Test rankings and as of February 2010, had won six of their last seven bilateral ODI series. 

MUHAMMAD YOUSUF

This much is at least certain that few Pakistani batsmen have been as elegant as Mohammd Yousuf and fewer still have been as prolific, as hungry to bat as long and bat as big.

At his best, watching Yousuf bat is an unnervingly tranquil experience, especially amid the traditional chaos of a Pakistan batting order. He has a dangerously high backlift, which makes every shot he plays, a late, unhurried afterthought, but a beautiful one. The feet take time to get going, but once they do, they dance with the best. Square and behind it on the off side are his areas, where his game is the most enchanting.

Both his life and career can be demarcated into two distinct phases. Until 2005, as Yousuf Youhana, he was only the fourth Christian to have played for Pakistan, and easily the most successful. He converted publicly to Islam late that year, after which he became a great Pakistani batsman and briefly part of as formidable a middle order as the country has seen, with Younis Khan and Inzamam-ul-Haq on either side. At least he believes there to be a link, and statistics would back that up.

Immediately after, in 2006, came his most profitable year, in fact the most profitable for any batsman ever in a calendar year. Over 11 Tests, he scored 1788 runs with nine hundreds, breaking Sir Viv Richards' 30-year-old record. If there had been a nagging doubt that he often withered when the heat was on - and the story of his rise from extremely humble backgrounds as a member of a minority religion should've wiped those away anyway - it was erased here.

Age, run-ins with the board since, and ill-advised flirtations with the ICL and captaincy dimmed his aura but the worst came in March 2010, when the PCB imposed a life-ban on him, along with Younis Khan as a part of its unprecedentedly harsh sanctions on senior players from the ill-fated tour of Australia. Yousuf's was overturned in 2010.

SHOAIB AKHTAR

About the worst way to assess Shoaib Akhtar would be to do so through his numbers; they aren't unimpressive but rarely have they revealed so little.

From the moment Shoaib emerged on the scene in the late 90s, the world knew it was in for some career. First there was the extreme pace and there was also the attitude; Shoaib was the fastest bowler in the world, he knew it, he made sure others knew it. He was a natural successor to the legacy of Imran, Wasim and Waqar. But that he will end his career an 'if only' or a 'coulda been' is the great tragedy. He had it all and he blew it.

What he had was remarkable. Early on, in 1999, there wasn't a more thrilling sight in the world than Shoaib hurtling in off an impossibly long run and beating the world's best batsmen for pace. Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar were clean bowled off successive deliveries at Eden Gardens and the World Cup in England later in the year was all but Shoaib's.

Other peaks came intermittently, but from 2004 to 2006, he rediscovered a spark; the trophy was the home series win over England in 2005-06 in which he took 17 wickets. By this time not only was he still very, very quick, but he had become an extremely smart bowler, an oft-underrated aspect of his development.

But it was a false dawn and a last hurrah. In between whiles and after, there have been as many lows. The list of misdemeanours is impossibly long; doubts about his action, ball-tampering offences, beating up his own team-mates, courtroom battles against his board, long bans and heavier fines, serious career-threatening injuries and most damagingly, doping charges. In his time, he missed more than half of the Tests Pakistan played.

So much so that what he did on the field had long ago ceased to matter and has been eclipsed by his scrapes off the field. For any sportsman, that is a damning indictment.

JAVED MIANDAD

Javed Miandad is the greatest batsman Pakistan has ever produced. There was little doubt in the mind of Abdul Hafeez Kardar, Pakistan's first Test captain and influential administrator, when he first laid eyes on him as a youngster in the early 70s and famously predicted Miandad "the find of the decade." He wasn't wrong, as a stupendous debut series against New Zealand in 1976 started to prove.

Miandad was not of the classical school of batting, though he possessed a beautiful square cut and most shots in and outside the book: he was a fine early reverse-sweeper. But he worked the angles and spaces equally well; he knew above all how to score runs in almost any situation. These qualities presented themselves through his entire career and uniquely, not once did his career average fall below fifty. No Pakistani has scored more Test runs than him and, Inzamam-ul-Haq aside, probably no batsman has won as many matches for Pakistan.

There was often a touch of genie or genius about his finest innings, like his two hundreds in successive Tests in the West Indies in 1987-88 or the big double hundreds against India and England. Problems on the bouncy pitches of Australia or the swinging ones of England were overcome with time and, if people questioned his record against the West Indies, they never did after that 1987-88 series.

He was versatile as well, as evidenced by a marvellous ODI career. Here his supreme running - it is said that he was one of the early pioneers of aggressive ODI running - shot placement and mental strength produced outstanding results. All qualities came together in a near-miraculous ODI century against India in Sharjah which won the Australasia Cup for Pakistan in 1986. He often saved his best for India, never more so than when he smote Chetan Sharma for a last-ball six to win that final. The match led to years of Pakistani domination over India, particularly in the deserts of Sharjah. In 1992, battling age and back problems, Miandad played a lead role in Pakistan's only World Cup triumph, with six half-centuries.

He was also Pakistan's youngest captain and always considered to be the most tactically astute. Imran Khan often acknowledges the role Miandad played as vice-captain with key on-field decisions, though the two were chalk to the other's cheese. But as captain possibly he was too abrasive to get on with all of his players, as at least two player revolts against his leadership suggest. And coinciding with the leadership of Imran, he never captained in as many Tests as he might have done. As with most subcontinent greats, he possibly lingered for longer than might have been advised, finally bowing out in 1996 after, ironically, a loss to India in the World Cup.

The problems of captaincy re-emerged when he became Pakistan's coach, where he had his ups and downs. Results were mostly positive but constant bickering from players about his excessively hands-on approach wasn't so good. After three stints in charge, he parted company with the team in 2004 to make way for Bob Woolmer after being blamed for Pakistan's one-day and Test losses to India. In October 2008, Miandad declined an offer to become Pakistan's coach again, but he was soon appointed the PCB's director-general, possibly a role of even greater influence. The move was hailed by many Pakistanis but it didn't last long - Miandad quit the job in January 2009, after differences with the board over the exact scope of his role. 

WAQAR YOUNIS

The man who really put the reverse into swing. Waqar Younis bucked the 1980s trend of pitching fast and short by pitching fast and full. Not an obvious recipe for success until you factor in prodigious late inswing, which was designed to smash into the base of leg stump or the batsman's toes. In his youth, he was one of the fastest ever. Waqar's surging run was a glorious sight - and an incredible strain on his body. His method of aiming for the stumps rather than the batsman earned him the best strike rate of any bowler with over 200 Test wickets. It could have been better: back injuries cut short his prime, but determination has always resurrected him, although he was easily pushed over the line that divides aggression and intimidation. He looked to have been put out to pasture by the end of 2000, but before long he had been appointed captain for the 2001 tour to England. Initial results suggested that this was an inspired move, but in October 2002 he was at the helm as Pakistan crumbled to 59 and 53 all out against Australia in Sharjah. He managed to retain the job for the World Cup, but a disastrous tournament - Pakistan beat only Holland and Namibia - meant an unceremonious exit. Unable to force his way back into a side building for the future, he announced his retirement in April 2004. As a batsman, lusty blows were his staple, but Waqar batted with the air of a man who thinks he could have done better. The next stage of his career began in March 2006 when he was appointed as Pakistan's bowling coach, and he has also been a regular in the commentary box.