Unfair to compare Babar Azam to Virat Kohli right now: Younis Khan

Younis Khan, former captain of the Pakistan Cricket team, spoke about the rise of the talismanic Pakistani middle order batsman Babar Azam, who was recently appointed the ODI captain on Pakistan. Although Azam is a class batsman, Younis believes he still has a long way to go before he can be compared with Indian captain Virat Kohli.

In an interview to Gulf News, Younis spoke, “You see, Kohli, who is now 31 and at the peak of his career, has been in international cricket for over a decade and has proved himself in all conditions. The 70 international centuries that he has scored is a testimony to his class and abilities.”
“Babar, on the other hand, made his international debut barely five years back. He already has 16 hundreds under his belt and shows very good averages in both Tests and ODIs, but it will be unfair to start comparing the two right now. If you have to, compare Babar five years (from now) with the dominance that Kohli is showing in his game today,” he added.

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Younis then went on to speak up about how indisciplined some of his teammates were in his time, revealing that he was considered a madman for speaking the truth while he was leading his country on the Cricket field.

Younis, the highest run scorer for Pakistan in Test Cricket, with 10,099 runs in 118 Tests at an average of 52.05, said that some players didn’t like it when he pointed out that they were falling short of committing themselves enough for the country, but then he also mentioned that they were repentant about it afterwards.

Younis spoke to Gulf News about the issue, saying, “You often face a situation in life where if you speak the truth, you are considered as a mad man. My fault was pointing out to a group of players that they were not pushing themselves hard enough on the field for the country. The players were, however, regretful later and we played as teammates long enough after that. I knew I had done nothing wrong for it’s a lesson that I had learned from my father, to always speak the truth and always remain humble.”