This week, Pakistan’s skipper Babar Azam was honoured with two ICC awards: ODI Player of the Year and Men’s Player of the Year for 2022. Throughout all international cricket forms last year, Babar hit almost 2,600 runs, an incredible feat that no other batter was able to match. Babar hit 8 fifties or more in only 9 ODIs, and he captained Pakistan to victories in the finals of both the Asia Cup and the T20 World Cup.
It was a repeat performance for Babar, who like India’s superstar Virat Kohli in 2017–18 won the ODI Player of the Year title for the year in every format it was offered. The current accomplishment by the Pakistan captain has given a substantial boost to the similarities that have been made between Babar and Kohli several times over the previous few years.
No one can replace Virat Kohli in t20i pic.twitter.com/YrFXmP6brc
— . (@stopthatkohli) January 27, 2023
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Former Pakistan captain Salman Butt, meanwhile, thinks it’s unfair to compare Babar to Kohli at this point in his career.
“Both are the best cricket players and performers in the world. But at this point in his career, Virat Kohli is in a league of his own. Kohli has 74 international hundreds, and he did not get a hundred for three years. Now you can imagine how big his shows are,” Butt said in a chat with paktv.tv.
“There is a time in a cricketer’s career when they do great, but then they start to have trouble. Babar is doing a great job right now, and we hope he keeps getting better. We want him to do well in life. Most people in Pakistan look up to people who have played exciting cricket, not steady cricket. We haven’t had a player like Babar at the top of the charts for a long time, so we should enjoy and appreciate him. We don’t want to send him into panic mode,” Butt added.
When the journalist pressed him again on the topic of parallels, the former Pakistan captain responded by citing an example. “There’s no comparison. It’s like comparing Wasim Akram and Shaheen Afridi. It’s not right,” Butt stated.
