KARACHI, May 1: Pakistan batting great Muhammad Yousuf believes that Indian captain Virat Kohli is in his prime and will soon start getting hundreds again in all formats.
Kohli, considered one of the best current batsmen in the world, has not scored a hundred in any format since 2019.
Kohli is only 32 and this is the age at which top batsmen hit prime and it is only a matter of time before he starts getting hundreds again, Yousuf said in an interview.
“To achieve what he has already achieved is formidable and to me, scoring 70 Test and One-day International hundreds (by Kohli) is extreme, said Yousuf, who has played 90 Tests and 288 ODIs,” the former Pakistan legend said.
Yousuf, who still holds the world record of scoring most Test runs in a calendar year when he made 1788 runs in 2005/06 season, would not like comparing Kohli with legendary batsman Sachin Tendulkar.
“Tendulkar was a different class altogether. He scored 100 international hundreds and keep in mind the era he played in and the bowlers he played against,” said the former Pakistan captain.
Yousuf felt that India still continued to produce technically better batsmen as compared to Pakistan.
“Their young batters have always had role models to follow from one era to another. That is why even today, they (India) are producing better batsmen,” he added.
Yousuf said that stakeholders in Pakistan cricket need to sit down and seriously think about the future because there was a dire need to get young players to also focus on other formats apart from T20.
“Or else, we will face more problems in batting in future,” Yousuf, who is now a batting coach at the PCB’s high-performance centre, said. (PTI)
