'Has Kohli faced Akram, McGrath, Warne?': Former Cricketer names Sachin as the real 'GOAT'

A former cricketer reignited the debate about who is a better batsman between Virat Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar. Former Pakistan off-spinner Saqlain Mushtaq, who played against the legendary India batter on many occasions, has claimed Kohli is much behind Tendulkar in terms of greatness. Mushtaq recently appeared on The Nadir Ali podcast and revealed many interesting incidents he was a part of while playing against Tendulkar.

“If there is one batter – and it’s not just me, the whole world agrees – there is no one bigger than Sachin Tendulkar. If you have to give a copybook example of any shot, people give Sachin’s example. Virat Kohli is a legend of today’s era but Sachin has faced extremely difficult bowlers,” Mushtaq said on the Podcast. The 46-year-old further pointed out that the Indian cricket legend faced some of the toughest bowlers of all time during his playing days.

“Has he faced Walsh, Ambrose, McGrath, Shane Warne, Muralitharan?”

“Has Kohli faced Wasim Akram? Has he faced Walsh, Ambrose, McGrath, Shane Warne, Muralitharan? These were big names and they were all very clever bowlers. They knew how to trap you. Today there are two types of bowlers – one that will stop you and another that will trap you. Those guys knew how to do them both – especially trap batters,” he said. The former Pakistani spinner also spoke about the much talked about comparison between Kohli and Babar Azam.

“Kohli and Babar are different players but both have their own class. But if you look at the beauty, perfection or technical aspects, Babar’s cover drives are much better,” he said.  Virat and Babar are undoubtedly two of the best batsmen of the current era, who have similar styles of playing but are miles apart in terms of stats.  Kohli smashed his 75th international century in the fourth Test against Australia and follows Tendulkar in the list of batsmen to score the most no. of hundreds.

Courtesy of Kohli’s 186-run knock in Ahmedabad, India earned a draw and clinched a 2-1 win in the Border Gavaskar Trophy 2023. This was the first Test century for Kohli since 2019 and his fifth international ton since September 2022. It is worth mentioning that Kohli reached the milestone of scoring 70 international centuries in 2019 and went three years without scoring one.