Comparisons are the flavour of the season right now. With no cricket for over three months now, one can’t even blame the current and former and cricketers from comparing batsmen and bowlers of different eras and picking their favourites. Former Pakistan pacer Umar Gul was the latest to put on the hot seat with a difficult task of naming his favourite Indian cricketer. To Gul’s credit, he did a fine job of explaining why he considers Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli as his favourites.
Gul who has played 47 Tests, 130 ODIs, and 60 T20Is for Pakistan picking up 163, 179 and 85 wickets respectively, said previously his favourite Indian cricketer was the legendary Sachin Tendulkar but now it is current India captain Virat Kohli.
“It was Sachin Tendulkar but currently Virat Kohli is my favourite,” Gul told Sawera Pasha in a YouTube interview when asked to name his favourite Indian cricketer.
Also Read | No better example than Rohit: Atherton explains India opener’s genius
The right-arm pacer who was the highest wicket-taker in the inaugural editions of T20 World Cup in 2007, explained how Kohli’s change of attitude has forced him to become a fan.
“In the last 4-5 years, the way Virat Kohli has been performing, he is my favourite batsman. The way he has changed himself, his behaviour on the field when he started playing against us to now has totally changed. His full concentration is on cricket now. It’s a pleasure to watch him bat; I enjoy it a lot,” added Gul, who has played with both Tendulkar and Kohli added.
The comparisons between Virat Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar became a regular affair in Indian cricket ever since the former started to show impeccable consistency in all three formats of the game.
Kohli’s run-scoring the last 7-8 years has been such that he has emerged as one of the front-runners to only come to close to Tendulkar’s towering records of the amount of runs and number of centuries but also go past them.
Also Read | Can’t explain what Rahul Dravid means to me: Pujara
Tendulkar is the only cricketer to have 100 international centuries to his name. Kohli, who is 31 and has a lot of cricket left in him, already has 70 centuries – 43 in ODIs and 27 in Tests.
In terms of runs, Kohli is still far away from Tendulkar’s mark in both Tests and ODIs. Sachin – the highest scorer in both formats – has 18426 runs in ODIs and 15921 runs in Tests.
Kohli, on the other hand, has 11867 runs in ODIs and 7240s in Tests.
