Azhar Mahmood calls Virat Kohli ‘inspirational’ for 'elders' like him

Former Pakistan all-rounder Azhar Mahmood, a British citizen now, expressed his respect for Indian captain Virat Kohli recently by calling the latter “inspirational” even for elders. Kohli and his team are currently touring England for a five-Test series. India lost the first Test in Birmingham by 31 runs despite Kohli’s heroics since no other batsman apart from him could put up a minimal show.

The Indian captain buried all criticism that persisted over his poor show in England in the 2014 series by slamming 149 in the first innings and followed it up with 51 in the second. The second Test will begin at Lord’s on Thursday, August 9. India is most likely to go with two spin options, adding Kuldeep Yadav in the XI.

Mahmood tweeted on Tuesday, a picture of him with Kohli and captioned it: “Good to see you as always. An inspirational to the youngsters and & elders like me @imVkohli all the best brother.” Mahmood, who is currently the bowling coach of Pakistan cricket team and has played in the Indian Premier League for the Kings XI Punjab by the virtue of the fact that he holds a British passport now, represented Pakistan between 1997 and 2007 and has three Test hundreds and three five-wicket hauls in ODIs. He had slammed an unbeaten century on Test debut against South Africa in 1997.

Here’s his tweet:

All eyes will be on India to see whether they can register a comeback at Lord’s as another defeat will badly hurt their purpose of winning a Test series in England since 2007 when Rahul Dravid’s side won 1-0. India will also have to spare a thought for picking the right combination for the second Test since the axing of middle-order batsman Cheteshwar Pujara at Edgbaston proved to be a gamble that didn’t pay off and the team management came under sharp criticism over the move.

Indian bowlers, nevertheless, continued with their good show overseas as they did in South Africa earlier this year by picking opposition’s 20 wickets but the batsmen failed miserably to capitalise on that.

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