Recently Shoaib Akhtar declared former India captain Virat Kohli was the greatest cricketer of all time, insulting the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, and Sunil Gavaskar in the process.
“You say good things about Virat Kohli. Give him respect. Why do you not give Virat Kohli respect? As a Pakistani I am saying, he is the greatest player of all time. I can bet that he will score 110 centuries,” Akhtar told Sportskeeda.
“Don't get afraid and you have to play till the age of 45. The current situation is preparing you to hit 110 centuries. People are writing you off, they are tweeting against you. You put out a post on Diwali, you are criticised. They tweet about your wife, your kid. Nothing can be worse than this. Nature is preparing you to score 110 tons. So, keep my words in mind and start slogging it out from today itself,” the controversial speedster from Rawalpindi added.
Most Indians wouldn't have much of a problem with Shoaib Akhtar's praise of Virat Kohli, after all almost every citizen of “Bharat” loves the compliments coming from Pakistan. Who would not like to be adored by an enemy?
But Shoaib Akhtar labelling Virat Kohli as the “greatest of all time” is an insult, particularly to Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil Gavaskar, because both these legendary cricketers faced far better and more dangerous bowlers than the 33-year-old has confronted in his career.
Tendulkar had to deal with the likes of Glenn McGrath, Shaun Pollock, Jason Gillespie, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Brett Lee, Shane Warne, Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, and Muttiah Muralitharan to name a few, and still made over 15,000 runs in Test cricket. On the other hand, Sachin finished his ODI career with over 18,000 runs.
While Virat Kohli's batting average is way better than Tendulkar's in the ODIs as he averages nearly 60 while Sachin Tendulkar's is just a shade under 44.
Though on paper this would look like a significant difference, one needs to understand that Virat Kohli has scored a high percentage of his runs in the powerplays, a luxury Tendulkar hardly had during his playing career.
Besides, nowadays two new balls are used – one each from differing ends, reducing the chances of reverse swing in the ODIs. But it wasn't the case in the late 1990s and the 2000s as pacers from Pakistan, Australia, and South Africa reaped the rewards from this fine art in the middle overs.
Who could forget Sachin's troubles against Abdul Razzaq and Shoaib Akhtar? Akhtar was the man who dismissed Sachin for his first-ever golden duck in the famous Kolkata Test in 1999.
Moreover, there's not an iota of doubt that the current rules of cricket are heavily loaded in the batsman's favour. The boundaries have become shorter and field restrictions have extended to 20 overs, making it an uneven contest between the ball and the bat and that's why if you see, more and more batters are now averaging over 50 in the ODIs.
Kohli, meanwhile, hasn't faced such bowlers in his career, barring England's James Anderson who has posed problems for him throughout his career. Even last year, when India was on a tour of the United Kingdom, the Lancashire speedster got the better of him on multiple occasions.
If one includes Sunil Gavaskar in this debate, then you would get to know that during the original Little Master's time, there was a dearth of safety gear. Yet he could take on the likes of Jeff Thompson, Denis Lille, Joel Garner, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Michael Holding, Ian Botham and Bob Willis and still ended with a career average of over 50 in Test cricket.
Unlike Kohli, Gavaskar made all his runs as an opener. Everyone knows what a new ball does in Test cricket, especially in countries like England, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa where the ball witnesses a significant amount of lateral movement both in the air and off the pitch.
Imagine Gavaskar’s technique being tested in the first hour of play in a Test with Joel Garner and Michael Holding opening the bowling for the West Indies.
Some would say that James Anderson and Stuart Broad give the same feeling when a team squares off against England, but modern-day cricketers still have protective gear to survive short-pitched stuff. In Sunil Gavaskar’s time, a player relied more on his technique and hand-eye coordination than helmets, leg guards, or arm guards.
There’s no doubt that Virat Kohli is one of the finest players India has ever seen but calling him the greatest is nothing but idiotism.
Shoaib Akhtar should immediately stop making fun of yesteryear Indian greats and if at all he wants to mock former cricketers, then he should make fun of his countrymen.
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