Shoaib Akhtar has stated that Virat Kohli can never be a greater player than legendary Sachin Tendulkar. Akhtar later explained his statement well.
For a long time, there has been a dispute over who is the greatest player, Virat Kohli or Sachin Tendulkar. Both have had outstanding careers, winning numerous matches for India.
Both hitters have scored a lot of runs and were India’s best batsmen at the time. Despite the great burden on their shoulders, Kohli and Tendulkar have consistently demonstrated their best batting ability.
Virat Kohli never played the quality of bowling that Sachin Tendulkar did- Shoaib Akhtar
Shoaib Akhtar was asked to respond to the question of who was the greatest player, Virat Kohli or Sachin Tendulkar. Akhtar boldly claimed that Kohli cannot be greater than Sachin. He justified it by claiming that Kohli has never played the type of bowlers that Tendulkar did during his career.
“I won’t say Virat (Kohli) is a bigger player than Sachin (Tendulkar). Virat can never be a greater player than Sachin. How can he be? Virat has never played that quality of bowling. It is not Virat’s fault that he never played quality bowling,” Akhtar said on the TNKS podcast.
The regulations have altered significantly since Sachin Tendulkar’s heyday, making it simpler for batsmen to score runs. As a result, we can witness a rise in average scores in the current period.
T20 cricket has become more marketed as it has grown in popularity. The technique of reverse swing appears to have diminished after the introduction of two new balls in ODI cricket.
Virat a player of the T20 era: Shoaib Akhtar
The former fast bowler for Pakistan subsequently asserted that Sachin Tendulkar faced the best bowlers in the history of the game, whereas Virat Kohli is a batter of the T20 era. Additionally, he asserted that there was reverse swing at the time, which made things much more challenging for the batters.
Additionally, Shoaib Akhtar referred to Virat Kohli as a “brand” and praised the number of hundreds he had amassed in international cricket. He described Kohli as the ideal brand ambassador to promote cricket.
“Virat is a player of the T20 era, but the era where Sachin played, the talents against whom he played hats off. Sachin was a very big name. Even Ricky Ponting was a destructive batter of his era. What do you think? Playing fast bowlers of that era was a joke? There was reverse swing also at that time,” Akhtar explained.
Virat Kohli has scored 540 international matches and scored 27257 runs at an average of 52.72. He is fourth on the list of the highest run-scorers in international cricket across the three formats.
On the other hand, Sachin Tendulkar made 34283 runs in 664 international matches with 100 centuries and 164 fifties. He remains the highest run-getter in ODIs (18426) and Tests (15847). He has also played the most Tests-200 and most ODIs- 463. He also played one T20I.
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