Zaheer Abbas lauds Virat Kohli's passion despite India playing maximum cricket matches

Indian captain Virat Kohli and Australian prolific run-scorer Steve Smith are widely considered as two of the best modern-day batsmen by many fans and cricket pundits. While Steve Smith is currently the number 1 ranked ICC Test batsman, Virat Kohli is the only cricketer to simultaneously hold a 50-plus average in each of the three international formats. Even though the cricketing fraternity often finds it difficult to pick a personal favourite out of the two run-scoring machines, former Pakistan batsman Zaheer Abbas managed to pick his favourite batsman across the three formats.

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Zaheer Abbas praises Virat Kohli and Steve Smith

While speaking with The Telegraph, Zaheer Abbas praised Steve Smith for his consistent run-scoring abilities in Test cricket. The former Pakistan cricketer also praised Steve Smith’s teammate David Warner for doing well in the five-day game. It is to be noted that David Warner scored 335* (his highest Test score) during Pakistan’s visit ‘Down Under’ last November.

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In the interview, Zaheer Abbas claimed that while Steve Smith is more consistent than Virat Kohli in Tests, the Indian captain is more established because of his consistency in all three formats. Zaheer Abbas personally believes that a batsman needs to heavily score in all three forms of international cricket to truly establish oneself as a top performer. 

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Zaheer Abbas on Virat Kohli’s professionalism

Zaheer Abbas noted that since India plays more cricket than any other nation, Virat Kohli gets more opportunities because he opts to play most of those matches. The Pakistani legend then credited Kohli’s professionalism towards the game as the Indian captain never gets bored of playing cricket. Abbas recited Kohli’s achievements over the years and added that there are not many cricketers at the moment who can rival the fierce Indian competitor at the international level.

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Virat Kohli, Steve Smith and David Warner in IPL 2020

Virat Kohli, Steve Smith and David Warner were all expected to feature in the much-anticipated Indian Premier League 2020 (IPL 2020) season as captains of their respective franchises. While Kohli leads Royal Challengers Bangalore in IPL, Steve Smith and David Warner are the captains of Rajasthan Royals and SunRisers Hyderabad respectively. However, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) recently delayed the launch of IPL 2020 due to the outbreak caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

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