Babar Azam, the captain of the Pakistan Cricket Team, received two ICC awards this week – ICC ODI Player of the Year and ICC Men’s Player of the Year for scoring nearly 2,600 runs in all formats of international cricket last year.
Babar Azam’s growth in the last 5-6 years has given rise to the debatable topic, ‘Who is a better batsman – Babar Azam or Virat Kohli?’
While many cricket fans and experts have contrasting views on this topic, former Pakistan captain Salman Butt has said that it would not be appropriate to compare the two at this time because Kohli is at a separate point in his career.
“Both are world class cricketers and top-notch performers. But there’s no comparison with Virat Kohli at this point in his career. Kohli has scored 74 international tons and he didn’t score a hundred in three years. Now you can imagine the magnitude of his performances,” Butt told paktv.tv in a chat.
“There’s a phase in a cricketer’s life when they perform brilliantly, but then start to struggle. Babar is performing exceptionally right now and we hope he only improves from here. We want him to be the best.
Most role models in Pakistan play exciting cricket, not consistent cricket. After a long time, we now have a player like Babar who tops the charts and we need to enjoy him, cherish him. We don’t want to send him into panic mode,” said Butt further.
When the interviewer asked the comparative question again, the former Pakistan captain concluded, “There’s no comparison. It’s like comparing Wasim Akram and Shaheen Afridi. It’s not right”.