Zaheer Abbas: “The comparisons are pointless, Virat Kohli scores in every match, the other player (Babar) doesn’t score in any match, so then how can you compare? The person who scores, he is the bigger player”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Legendary Pakistan batsman Zaheer Abbas believes it is useless to compare Babar Azam to India superstar Virat Kohli as he “doesn’t score in any match”.
Azam has been Pakistan’s most consistent run-scorer over the past few years, but his form has taken a significant dip over the last couple of months.
Since he is no longer doing his job of being Pakistan’s frontline batsman, Abbas insisted that Kohli “is the bigger player”.
“The comparisons are pointless, Virat Kohli scores in every match, the other player (Babar) doesn’t score in any match, so then how can you compare? The person who scores, he is the bigger player,” he was quoted as saying by Cricket Pakistan.
Azam recently represented Pakistan in their two-Test series against Bangladesh, but was unable to have an impact as he was restricted to 64 runs at an average of 16.
Following this, he played for the Stallions in the Champions One-Day Cup, which was a domestic 50-over competition that took place in Faisalabad.
In four games, he accumulated 230 runs, which included a century and a fifty, at an average of 76.66.
Azam then featured in the first Test against England and made scores of 30 and 5.
He was subsequently removed from the squad for the second Test, which Pakistan won by 152 runs, and won’t play in the third Test either, which gets underway on October 24 in Rawalpindi.
Pakistan Squad for 2nd and 3rd Tests against England: Shan Masood (captain), Saud Shakeel (vice-captain), Aamer Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Haseebullah Khan (wicketkeeper), Kamran Ghulam, Mehran Mumtaz, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Ali, Muhammad Hurraira, Mohammad Rizwan (wicketkeeper), Noman Ali, Saim Ayub, Sajid Khan, Salman Ali Agha, Zahid Mahmood.