imam ul haq shahid afridi virat kohli babar azam sportstiger

Pakistan cricket team captain Babar Azam is one of the biggest faces in the country in terms of fan following. Ever since his debut, Azam has established himself as a cricketer by piling up runs across formats. The 28-year-old has already scored over 11k runs combined in all three formats. With Azam doing the most of scoring for Pakistan, he often gets compared to India’s batting stalwart Virat Kohli who himself has over 25,000 runs in international cricket. 

Fans of the two cricketers fight day in and out on social media over who is better. However, some sensible fans do accept that while Kohli is already a legend of the game, Babar is well on course to become one soon. But in order to achieve what Virat Kohli has, the Pakistan captain needs to work on a few areas of concern- his strike rate for that matter. 

It’s not an Indian cricket team fan or a former Indian cricketer saying this but Azam’s teammate Imam-Ul-Haq. The southpaw has said that Babar needs to work on his strike rate to achieve the level of dominance Virat Kohli has in international cricket. During a discussion on Samaa TV, Haq claimed that Babar does not feel like a threat to the bowlers even when he has spent enough time on the crease and is well set.

“Babar feels that he has played enough cricket now and should have more dominance and command in his batting so that he should be able to finish the match and not leave it in between. He agrees and understands this thing and we have had a lot of discussion on it that now we have to win matches by dominating,” said Imam. 

“So, to achieve the level of domination, that Virat Kohli or Ab de Villiers have had, Babar has to work on his strike rate. After going past the 50-run mark, he should play with more freedom so that the bowlers feel scared. I feel there is a thing that if he gets set on the crease, he doesn’t feel like a threat to the bowlers. So, if he can add those finishing touches, it will benefit both the country as well as Babar on a personal level.”