Moody identified that the Pakistan captain’s fashion and method strongly evoke ideas of the long-lasting Indian batsman, drawing notable parallels between the 2 prolific gamers.
“I think absolutely he is. He does remind me very much of Virat Kohli, the way he goes about his business. He plays authentic cricket shots. He seems to understand, read the game very well, which Kohli has done for over a decade. He is a good chaser as well like Virat Kohli has proven to be over many, many years.”
“So, there’s so much likeness between the two and I wouldn’t go as far as saying that Virat is gonna have a better Asia Cup than Babar Azam, but they both can have equal pressure on them and it’s gonna be a delight to watch them both bat because they are box office,” Moody was quoted as saying by Star Sports.
Scheduled from August 30 to September 17, the upcoming version of the Asia Cup is ready to happen throughout Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The inaugural match of India’s Asia Cup Group A journey is slated in opposition to Pakistan on September 2 on the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium in Kandy.
Moody believes Azam being Pakistan’s captain for some time has enhanced his management expertise, on which he can financial institution upon in the course of the Asia Cup. “Well, the captaincy for any captain in any Asian team is always a very challenging one.”
“The microscope is very much on every single captain and every single move and suddenly you’ve got so many experts out there when you do make a move that maybe not be the right move at the time but I think that he’s still dealing with the growing pressures of captaincy there’s no question of that.”
“So, you know, he’ll only continue to get better. He is also got around him, I mentioned the experience of this Pakistan side now he’s also got a lot of experience around him and a lot of players that have been in captaincy roles whether that be in franchise cricket or in their domestic cricket, so he’s got a lot of strong leadership pillars around which I’m sure he’ll draw upon,” he elaborated.
Taking ahead Moody’s view, former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar spoke concerning the qualities of Kohli and Azam by drawing a comparability between the 2. “Absolutely, and we can expect that to happen again. Just one thing that you know people like Tendulkar and Virat Kohli have had to deal with that they’ve had long careers and they sort of have spanned over 10-15 years and anytime there’s been a rising star, he’s been compared to a guy who’s been in the race for a long time.”
“So sometimes it can be a little unfair but the greatness of these two guys is that they maintain that standard that the best performance of a rising player is equated with it. Yes, both are very good players.”
“One obviously in his prime younger but coming to these kind of platform we want to say Virat Kohli and see with the format that we have here not the T20 format, Asia Cup this time round you might just see a bit Babar Azam and maybe show his place as well.”
(With IANS Inputs)
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com