The comparisons between two of the greatest modern batsmen in Virat Kohli and Steve Smith are unending. Many cricket experts and common people have compared the two modern greats on many parameters throughout their careers and have yet to confirm who the best amongst the two is.
Former Australia spinner and Australia’s leading Test wicket taker, Shane Warne has also compared and analyzed the game of the two batsmen and have given his opinion.
“To me, Steve Smith is the best Test batsman in the world. Virat Kohli is the best across all three formats of the game, but across five days, Steve Smith is the man. The hole in Kohli’s CV on the Test match stage is in England and the pressure is on the fiery but very likeable Indian to carry over some double-ton magic from home soil to that country when his team tours next year,” he wrote in his column.
With India scheduled to tour South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia next season, Warne says that Kohli will be under huge pressure to replicate his form during the 2016-17 season, which India played majorly at home and on subcontinent pitches.
Warne also said that Kohli’s impressive CV has a huge hole in it, with his mediocre performances in England in both 2011 and 2014 tours.
Smith has scored 1127 runs in Tests this year and will pass no.1 run getter Cheteshwar Pujara during the Boxing Day Test against England in Melbourne. He has also scored centuries in India and other alien conditions. Kohli on other hand has hit 3 double centuries in Tests and six hundreds in ODIs this year and will embark on foreign tours starting January, 2018.
“To me a great batsman has to have made a hundred in three key countries: in England, against the Duke ball on seaming and swinging pitches; in Australia, on our fast-paced, bouncy tracks; and of course, in the dust bowls of India, on pitches that spin and spit,” Warne wrote in his column for News Corp.
Warne also added that if Smith plays more than 100 Test matches for his country, then he might end up as one of the absolute legends in the history of the game.
“Look at him on pure numbers and since Bradman, he’s the best. If Smith keeps this form up over 100 Test matches, he will leave the game as an absolute legend and one of the all-time greats,” the man termed as the greatest spinner ever to play cricket, concluded.
