"He's one of the best, I'll try to become a player like him"; Babar on comparison with Kohli

Babar also recalled his first meeting with Shoaib Akhtar.

By Rashmi Nanda - 10 Jun, 2020

Babar Azam, Pakistan’s limited-overs captain and the No.1 T20I batsman in the world, has established himself as one of the best batsmen in modern-day cricket in a short period

The talented batsman has been slowly and steadily challenging some of the best in the business given his run-scoring rate and consistency across all three formats of the game – which has often led to his comparison with world-class batter and Indian superstar Virat Kohli.

Read Also: Shoaib Akhtar feels Virat Kohli and Babar Azam will break many world records

However, the young batting sensation has always maintained that he himself just tries to learn a lot by overserving one of the best modern batting legend Kohli.

Recently, Pakistan captain engaged in a chat session with Harsha Bhogle for Cricbuzz, where he has reiterated that Kohli is one of the best players in the world whereas he is far behind the India captain and has a lot more to achieve and he will try to become a player like him and win matches for Pakistan.

Babar said: “He is one of the best players. I am far behind. I have a lot to achieve yet. I will try to become a player like him and win matches for Pakistan and create records.”

Read Also: WATCH- Babar needs to show on-field aggression like Kohli, feels Aamir Sohail

During the conversation, Bhogle also asked Babar to mark 5 shots with their respective batsmen and the start batsman picked Kohli’s cover drive, Kane Williamson’s backfoot punch, Rohit Sharma’s flick, Steve Smith’s straight drive and AB de Villiers’ hook/pull shot.

Meanwhile, Azam also recalled his first meeting with pace great Shoaib Akhtar, saying: “When I saw Shoaib Akhtar bowl for the first time, I realized how quick he was. There used to be U-19 camps where they used to let us bat as well. Shoaib Bhai also used to come there occasionally.”

Babar signed off by saying, “He used to bowl towards the end. Once he called me and told me that I had to block the deliveries and not drive. I blocked two balls and then hit a drive. Whenever he used to come there, he used to call me and bowl at me. While he used to bowl length deliveries to me, he once bowled a bouncer by mistake.”

(With Cricbuzz Inputs)

By Rashmi Nanda - 10 Jun, 2020

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