Babar Azam is a great player, but unfair to compare him with Virat Kohli: Mohammed Shami

Babar Azam has been Pakistan’s best batter in the modern era ever since he had first burst onto the scene in 2015 and has successfully established himself as one of the finest white-ball players in the last few years.

Azam also became the fastest batter to amass 1000, 2000 and 2500 T20I runs surpassing former Indian skipper Virat Kohli to achieve the feat and at the same time, has also proved that the burden of captaincy has not affected his batting as he led the Men in Green to the semifinals of the ICC T20 World Cup 2021 where he was also the leading run-scorer.

Even though Pakistan’s batting superstar is at the peak of his career, senior Team India pacer Mohammed Shami has said that it is too early to compare him with Kohli and at the same time, he also made it clear that Babar should not be compared with anyone from the modern-day ‘Fab 4’ including Steve Smith and Joe Root.

“No doubt Babar Azam is a great player. But to compare him with the likes of Steve Smith, Joe Root or Virat Kohli will be unfair on him,” said Shami while speaking to India.com.

Let Babar Azam play for that many years: Mohammed Shami

Meanwhile, the Bengal speedster also mentioned that Azam will need to play consistently for many years just like how the modern-day batting greats have done to reach where they are today and if he succeeds in doing that, then he will be in a position to be judged as one of the greatest to have made an impact on the 22 yards.

“I would say let him play for that many years and then maybe we can judge. At the moment, if he continues to play like that, then he would obviously end his career as one of the greats from Pakistan. Good luck Babar Azam, I would say,” he said.

The former Indian skipper has been going through a rough patch in the last two years as a wait for his 71st international century continues. Azam, on the other hand, has scored more runs than the batting megastar in two ICC tournaments. While Kohli scored 443 runs in the 2019 World Cup and 68 matches from five games in the 2021 T20 World Cup, Babar scored 474 and 303 runs respectively in both tournaments.