Yousuf said: "I am delighted to be able to break Richards' record and to be ranked alongside him. He was the greatest player of the century."
Yousuf's final tally for the year is 1788 runs from 11 Tests, and 665 of them have come from the series against West Indies, the highest tally recorded by a Pakistani batsman in a three-Test series.
He began his run with two hundreds in the home series against India. He only played a solitary Test in Sri Lanka, personally an unmemorable one, but a double century at Lord's sparked off a stunning second half of the year.
Two more hundreds came from the remaining three Tests in England, including 192 at Headingley. He ended the year with three hundreds in three Tests against the West Indies at home.
During the course of this magnificent run, a few more records fell. His first-innings hundred at Karachi meant that he had scored eight Test hundreds this year alone, going past the previous best of seven, held jointly by Richards and Aravinda de Silva. By scoring five hundreds in five consecutive Tests, he also became only the third man, along with Jacques Kallis and Sir Don Bradman (six hundreds in six Tests) to do so.
Yousuf also had praise for Bob Woolmer, Pakistan's coach, and Mushtaq Ahmed for the part they have played in his game over the last year. "I changed the way I practiced. Mushy really helped during the England tour and in India," he said. "He made me practice with slabs to be able to play rising deliveries better and that has really helped.
When asked to compare himself with Javed Miandad, Yousuf said only, "It is difficult to compare. You are either better or worse and anyway, it is for the media to decide. I can't say anything about it. But he is my ideal." And when the question of Sir Don Bradman's record of six hundreds in six consecutive Tests reared its head, Yousuf replied, with some cheek, "I have six in five Tests, so you decide."