Babar Azam’s career nosedive exposed as Virat Kohli shadow looms large: ‘Pakistan media hyped too much, made him king’

Wasim Jaffer believes Babar Azam's struggles stem from constant comparisons to Virat Kohli, creating undue pressure.

Babar Azam’s slide has never been only about runs. It has also been about the size of the identity built around him.

Virat Kohli in IPL and Babar Azam in PSL. (AFP)

For years, Pakistan’s premier batter was placed inside a frame that made every innings larger than itself: Babar the run-machine, Babar the captain, Babar the face of Pakistan cricket, and eventually, Babar as the man measured against Virat Kohli.

Former India batter Wasim Jaffer believes that the comparison did not help Babar. Speaking in a video posted on his X handle, Jaffer said Babar remains one of Pakistan’s finest batters of this generation, but argued that the constant attempt to put him beside Kohli created unnecessary pressure and pushed expectations beyond his natural space.

The comments come at a time when Babar’s career has gone through a rougher, more scrutinised phase. His captaincy has already seen multiple turns, Pakistan’s white-ball results have invited heavy criticism, and his T20 batting tempo has repeatedly been questioned. Jaffer’s point was not that Babar lacked quality. It was that the environment around him turned quality into hype, and hype into pressure.

Jaffer says Babar was hyped beyond his natural space

Jaffer began by acknowledging Babar Azam’s stature as a batter, but said the praise around him had gone too far once the Kohli comparison became constant.

“Babar is a good player, there is no doubt about it. He has also performed well. I also like him as a player. But I think he has been rated more than his potential, started comparing him with Virat Kohli. They made him the king. People around you treat you like that. The media is calling you ‘King Babar’. Unnecessary comparison started with Virat,” Jaffer said.

That is the heart of Jaffer’s criticism. Babar was not judged only as Babar. He was judged as Pakistan’s answer to Kohli. That changed the scale of every failure. A poor series became a crisis. A slow innings became evidence. A captaincy setback became a wider verdict on his standing.

Jaffer said the comparison began to affect Babar mentally, especially because Kohli’s legacy had already been built across formats, eras, chases, pressure situations and long stretches of dominance.

“And I think that pressure started playing in his mind. He tried to be like Virat Kohli. He tried to play like how Virat used to in the Indian team. He tried to play like that. He tried to perform like that. Virat is Virat - one of the greatest players of this generation. So, I felt that the media hyped him too much. And from there, his downslide started,” he added.

Captaincy criticism also enters the debate

Jaffer also linked Babar’s struggles to his stint as Pakistan's leader. Babar had led Pakistan through a high-pressure period, but the team’s failure to consistently convert promise into major tournament success kept the spotlight fixed on him.

“Plus, his captaincy, he didn’t build the team as he should have. Although he got chances, he couldn’t perform as expected. Neither could the team win consistently, although he played the T20 World Cup final. But I think he didn’t take Pakistan cricket to the top when he had the chance,” Jaffer said.

The criticism is sharp, but not dismissive. Jaffer was careful to separate Babar’s batting class from the inflated image built around him. He did not call him ordinary. He questioned the scale of the crown placed on him.

That distinction matters. Babar’s best years have made him one of Pakistan’s most important modern batters, but the Kohli comparison turned his career into a constant referendum. Every dip was magnified because the benchmark was not another good contemporary batter. It was Kohli, one of the defining players of the generation.

Jaffer ended by softening his criticism, saying Babar remains “without a doubt, one of the finest batters of Pakistan this generation.”

That is where the debate sits. Babar’s problem, in Wasim Jaffer’s reading, was not talent. It was the burden of being made to carry a Kohli-sized myth before he had built a Kohli-sized legacy.