Virat Kohli does not even come close to Sachin Tendulkar: Mohammad Asif

The former Pakistan pacer Mohammad Asif has expressed his opinions on the best-batter debate that involves Virat Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar. Often, parallels are been drawn between the two on who goes down as the most complete batter in the history of cricket.

Tendulkar had ruled the proceedings in his era by displaying his fiefdom and achieving the rare feat of registering 100 centuries across formats. Kohli, on the other hand, is considered one of the best batters of modern times. He is renowned as the chase-master and is appreciated by the on-lookers for bringing in a lot of passion and aggression on the field.

However, when it comes to making a choice between these two, the cricketing fraternity more often than not gets divided. The former Pakistan speedster feels that Kohli is doing well owing to his fitness. He further added that the current India captain doesn’t come closer to Tendulkar and said that Babar Azam resembles a lot to the legendary India batter when it comes to the style of play.

I don’t think Virat Kohli can make a comeback: Mohammad Asif

“Kohli is a bottom-hand player. He is doing well because of his fitness and it is supporting him. The moment he will face a decline, I don’t think Kohli can make a comeback. In fact, Babar is an upper-hand player like Sachin. His bat movement is fluent like Sachin. People say Kohli is better than Tendulkar. I say no. Virat does not even come close to Sachin. This is my opinion,” Mohammad Asif said while on CoverDriveCricket’s YouTube channel.

“The way Sachin played was all upper hand and very few people know about this technique. Be it coaches or any one player. Sachin was so fluent with his cover drives, on drives pulls and cuts. No doubt Kohli has strokes as well, but he is all bottom hand,” said the former Pakistan pacers,” added the former Pakistan pacer.

Kohli currently has 70 international centuries to his name. In ODIs, he is close to Tendulkar’s number of centuries. However, when it comes to Tests, he has 27 tons whereas the former cricketer has a record 51 hundreds.