Mohammad Yousuf says Indian batsmen better in Sachin Tendulkar’s era than Virat Kohli’s
Former Pakistan captain and one of the country’s batting great Mohammad Yousuf says that the Indian batsmen who played around the era of Sachin Tendulkar were better than the current one with Virat Kohli at the helm.
Yousuf says the quality of bowlers was better back then when Tendulkar was an active cricketer, implying that the current crop of fast bowlers around the world are not a match to their predecessors.
Yousuf is also of the opinion that the Little Master Sachin Tendulkar was a better batsman than his contemporaries in West Indies’ Brian Lara and Australia’s Ricky Ponting, even though all three of them were world-dominating batsmen who went on to make and break many a record.
Yousuf was quoted as saying by the Indian Express,
“Kohli, (Rohit) Sharma, (Cheteshwar) Pujara, and (KL) Rahul are all quality batsmen but if I compare, the Indian batting (line-up) of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, (VVS) Laxman, (Sourav) Ganguly was better,”
Yousuf said.
“You don’t have that sort of bowling quality nowadays, cricket has changed a lot and things are different now. When I was playing for Pakistan there were many great batsmen in those days like Brian Lara, (Ricky) Ponting, (Matthew) Hayden but I always felt that Tendulkar was in every way the most complete batsmen,”
said the former Pakistan cricketer who changed his name form Yousuf Youhana to Mohammad Yousuf during his playing days.
The former Pakistan batting mainstay is of the opinion that there should be no comparisons between modern day batting great Kohli, who is a constant performer across formats, with the extremely talented and promising Pakistan batsman Babar Azam.
“Kohli has played much more cricket than Babar who has only about three to four years of exposure in international cricket. But yes, if you ask me to make a comparison based on where Kohli stood after the same number of matches that Babar has played, I would say Babar has done better,”
Yousuf said.
Babar was announced as Pakistan’s ODI captain in May this year as he replaced the wicketkeeper-batsman Sarfaraz Khan at the helm, who controversially led the country’s national team during the ICC World Cup 2019 in England. Babar has already been Pakistan’s T20I captain for a while. Pakistan had failed to go past the league round, which resulted in tremendous criticism for all players and the captain Sarfaraz in particular.
Babar has so far played 29 Tests, 77 One-Day Internationals (ODIs) and 42 Twenty20 Internationals (T20Is). He averages more than 50 in ODIs and T20Is, whereas in Tests Babar’s average is in excess of 45. The right-handed batsman is ranked No 5 in Tests, No 3 in ODIs whereas No 2 in T20Is.
