Former Pakistan pacer Aaqib Javed has made a controversial claim that the Pakistani trio of Babar Azam, Shaheen Afridi, and Mohammad Rizwan are much better than their Indian counterparts Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Rishabh Pant.
There is an ongoing debate between cricket lovers of both nations ever since Pakistan started playing international cricket in 1952. It was earlier Javed Miandad, Zaheer Abbas vs Sunil Gavaskar, then it moved to Inzamam Ul Haq, Saeed Anwar vs Sachin Tendulkar, and now Virat Kohli and co. against Babar Azam and co.
Former Indian skipper Virat has a batting average of close to 50 in all three formats of the game (50+ in ODIs and T20Is and 49.95 in Tests), Babar is the only batter who is in the top five in the rankings in all the three formats at the moment.
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However, Kohli has not scored a hundred in any form of international cricket and IPL since November 2019 and has seen a huge dip in his batting form and also stepped down as India Test and T20I captain, and was replaced as the ODI captain, with Rohit Sharma taking over in all three formats.
Looking at the current form of both these players, Aaqib Javed, who was part of Pakistan’s 1992 World Cup-winning team, said that Babar Azam was ahead of Virat Kohli as Kohli was past his peak, while Babar’s is yet to arrive.
"Now I think Babar is ahead. He (Kohli) had his peak, but now it is going down. But Babar, on the other hand, is going up," Aaqib was quoted as saying by Cricket Pakistan.
He also made a comparison of Jasprit
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"I now think that Shaheen is better than Bumrah because when Shaheen came into the international circuit, Bumrah had already established himself and the critics used to say that Bumrah is doing well in Tests, T20Is, and so but now Shaheen has proved he is even better and has more capacity than Bumrah," he said.
"Rizwan is better than Pant these days. There is no doubt that Pant is an extremely skillful player, but the way Rizwan takes the responsibility, Pant is well behind him. It is often said that Pant is an aggressive player, but the aggressiveness doesn’t mean hitting a couple of big shots and getting out, but staying at the crease, fighting, and finishing the game," Aaqib added.
India and Pakistan do not play bilateral series and their next meeting is going to happen in the Asia Cup in Sri Lanka.
