Pakistan captain Babar Azam won twin-ICC accolades earlier this week, when he was named the men's player of the year as well as the men's ODI player for 2022. Babar scored over 2,600 runs in international cricket across all formats last year, and scored 8 fifty-plus scores in nine ODI innings. In addition, the Pakistan skipper also led the side to finals in the Asia Cup and the T20 World Cup.
With a second-consecutive ODI player of the year award under his belt, Babar matched India great Virat Kohli's feat, who achieved the accolades in 2017-18. Babar's batting prowess has led many to draw his comparisons with Kohli but former Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq believes it's too early to compare the two.
During an interaction with the media, Misbah stated that Kohli has played more cricket than Babar, who is “just starting.”
“There shouldn't be a comparison between the two. Kohli has played a lot of cricket, Babar is just starting. When Babar will play the same amount of cricket, then you can make a comparison. Kohli has played more cricket, and no one can match him at the moment. Yes, Babar is a class player and he might achieve the same things as Kohli in the future, but at the moment, comparison between the two doesn't make sense because it's just a start for Babar,” Misbah said in a video posted by paktv.tv.
{{/usCountry}}“There shouldn't be a comparison between the two. Kohli has played a lot of cricket, Babar is just starting. When Babar will play the same amount of cricket, then you can make a comparison. Kohli has played more cricket, and no one can match him at the moment. Yes, Babar is a class player and he might achieve the same things as Kohli in the future, but at the moment, comparison between the two doesn't make sense because it's just a start for Babar,” Misbah said in a video posted by paktv.tv.
{{/usCountry}}Earlier, another former captain of Pakistan – Salman Butt – had also said that comparing the two would be like drawing parallels between ‘Wasim Akram and Shaheen Afridi’, insisting that it is too early to deliver the verdict.
Babar has represented Pakistan in 47 Tests, 95 ODIs, and 99 T20Is so far. He boasts of an incredible average of 59.4 in the fifty-over format, and is currently the fourth-highest run-getter in T20Is (3,355). Kohli, meanwhile, tops the chart among run-scorers in the shortest format (4,008), and has 74 international centuries to his name so far.