Former Pakistan legendary spinner Saqlain Mushtaq believes that master blaster Sachin Tendulkar will always be to the fore of Virat Kohli when it comes to greatness. Tendulkar faced more difficult bowlers when he used to play for India.
“If there is one batter – and it’s not just me, the whole world agrees – there is no one bigger than Sachin Tendulkar. If you have to give a copybook example of any shot, people give Sachin’s example. Virat Kohli is a legend of today’s era but Sachin has faced extremely difficult bowlers,” Saqlain said on Nadir Ali’s podcast.
After starting his cricket career in 1989, the former right-handed batter played a total of 200 Test matches for India with 463 ODIs too. He accumulated 15,921 and 18,426 runs in them respectively. He also made 100 International centuries in his career.
Saqlain Mushtaq, who has represented Pakistan in 49 Tests and 169 ODIs, dissected why Sachin will always be ahead as a batter.
“Has Kohli faced Wasim Akram? Has he faced Walsh, Ambrose, McGrath, Shane Warne, Muralitharan? These were big names and they were all very clever bowlers. They knew how to trap you. Today there are two types of bowlers – one that will stop you and another that will trap you. Those guys knew how to do them both – especially trap batters,” he said.
The former Pakistan spinner also spoke on one of the most burning topics which is Babar Azam vs Virat Kohli debate. According to him, Babar has a long road to travel to be compared to Kohli.
“Kohli and Babar are different players but both have their own class. But if you look at the beauty, perfection or technical aspects, Babar’s cover drives are much better,” he said.
Recently, Virat Kohli became the third fastest Indian player to get to 4000 runs in Test cricket on home soil and also became the second batsman to make the most international runs against Australia.