Younis once placed a knife on my neck after giving advice, claims former Pakistan coach

Former Pakistan batting coach Grant Flower claimed that once he tried to give some advice to former captain Younis Khan, he put a knife on his neck. The 49-year-old coach recalled the incident involving Younis when Zimbabwe’s Flower was asked what difficult players he faced during his coaching career. He was the batting coach of Pakistan from 2014 to 2019. Flower is currently Sri Lanka’s batting coach. In a conversation with his brother Andy and host Neil Manthorp on the ‘Following on Cricket’ podcast, Younis Khan … is very difficult to teach him.

‘I had put a knife on my neck

if I did not like it,’ he said, “I remember an incident in Brisbane, I tried to give him some batting advice at breakfast in the morning during a Test match … but he gave me good advice.” I did not get that knife and brought it to my neck, Mickey Arthur was sitting along who had to intervene in between. Younis was recently appointed as the batting coach of the Pakistani team for the tour of England. He has scored 10,099 runs in 118 Tests for Pakistan at an average of 52.05. Flower said yes, it was interesting. But it is part of coaching. This makes the journey quite difficult and I have truly enjoyed it. I have a lot of things to learn right now but I am very lucky to have reached this point.

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‘This incident took place in Australia’

This incident happened during the opening Test of Pakistan’s tour of Australia in Brisbane in 2016 in which Younis was dismissed for zero in the first innings and then managed to score 65 runs in the second innings. He ended the tour with an unbeaten 175-run knock in the third Test. Pakistan, however, lost the three-Test series 0–0. Flower also described Pakistan opener Ahmed Shehzad as an interesting character. He said that he is a very good batsman, but very rebellious. Every team has a rebel. Sometimes this thing makes him a good player, sometimes it is not.