I’ll play only if I get Ramazan off: Yousuf

Batsman will sign Leicestershire contract if he gets a fasting break

KARACHI: Mohammad Yousuf will only sign his Leicestershire contract if the county allows him a Ramazan break.

Leicestershire Chief Executive Mike Siddall confirmed to The Express Tribune that the former Pakistan captain has been offered a 16-match contract that lasts the entire season, including Ramazan which starts in the second half of July. But Yousuf, who last played for Pakistan almost 15 months ago, wants to fast for the entire month and is hoping that the county will allow him to skip four matches that fall in that period.

“I have the contract with me and it just needs my signature to confirm everything,” Yousuf, out on a four-month religious gathering, told The Express Tribune. “I’ve been contracted for the four-day format as that’s the only format I want to play in. However, I’ve asked them to give me a month off for Ramazan and I will only sign the contract if I’m allowed to take that break.”

Yousuf has played 90 Tests and 288 One-Day Internationals for Pakistan, scoring 7,530 and 9,720 runs respectively. He also holds the record of scoring most Test runs in a calendar year (1,788 in 2006). This will be the batsman’s maiden stint with Leicestershire, having previously played for Lancashire (2008) and Warwickshire (2011).

Leicestershire, meanwhile, will make a decision on the batsman by the end of the week, according to Siddall.

“We only became aware of this situation earlier this week,” he said. “He’ll miss four of the 16 championship matches and that’s something that we’ll sit down and look at. He’s missing 25% of the team’s matches and that can be crucial. However, if he scores 1,200 odd runs in the other 12 matches then you could argue against that.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19^th, 2012.