Former Australia all-rounder Shane Watson has picked his ‘fab 5’ Test batters currently and rated them as per his choices. There has been a debate going on about who is the best batter in the world right now in the longest format of the game and there are a few names being thrown around.
Test cricket has seen the likes of Steve Smith, Virat Kohli, Joe Root, and Kane Williamson dominate the last decade and Pakistan's captain and premier batter Babar Azam is slowly but surely entering the same league as the other four.
While speaking on ICC Review, Shane Watson named his five picks for the best batter in Test cricket right now. He ranked former India captain Virat Kohli at the top, despite the fact he hasn’t scored a century in international cricket since 2019.
"In Test match cricket, I am always going to say Virat Kohli. It's nearly superhuman, what he is able to do because he has such high intensity every time he goes out to play,” Watson said, when asked by Isa Guha who he thought is the best Test batter in the world.
He placed Babar Azam in the second spot and said, "Babar Azam is playing incredibly well. [It's great] to be able to see how he has adapted his game to really move his game to Test cricket as well. Babar Azam would probably be No.2 at the moment."
The next name came was that of his former teammate Steve Smith who said that the Aussie maestro has started to "come off".
"Steve Smith has just started to come off a little bit. It looks like Smith has really started to play for time a little bit more and is not putting as much pressure on the bowlers as he did when was at his absolute best. For me, Steve has dropped down that list a little bit,” Watson added.
Watson put New Zealand captain Kane Williamson on the fourth spot and England’s Joe Root on the fifth.
"Kane Williamson has had a few elbow issues. Kane knows his game inside out and knows how to put pressure on bowlers in any conditions,” Watson said.
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Meanwhile, speaking of Joe Root, whom he placed at 5th on his list, Watson said: "Joe Root recently scored a hundred but he has had a bit of time along the lines of Steve Smith where he hasn't been able to nail the big scores like he has done in the past.”
Watson signed off by saying: “It's incredible how these world-class batters just go through waves where instead of scoring those big hundreds, get the 70s-80s, but still have an impact on the game but are not able to really maintain that really high standard of getting those big runs as they have done in the past."
