It's 02:53AM here. Can't sleep as well.
So? Records against India shouldn't be taken seriously? Believe it or not there was a thread here at PP where an Indian PP was convinced that Agarkar was a superior bowler than Akhtar. You yourself consider Buvneshwar Kumar the best in Asia. Don't you?
Erm no, read my post again. I was deliberately following the general PP narrative, where Indian bowlers flip from useless to good to useless depending on convenience.
For example, people put down Kohli's century in SA because it was a flat pitch, yet they continue to forget that the so-called pathetic Indian bowling attack rolled SA out cheaply in the first innings and no one performed for India except Kohli.
It is like the flatness of the pitch is determined by how many runs Kohli scores.
India's bowling attack is underrated. They lack an all-condition spearhead pacer but as a unit they hold their own more often than not. B. Kumar is definitely the best new ball bowler in Asia at present.
However, Australian pace attack is quite obviously superior to India's, especially on Australian pitches. Scoring runs for an Indian batsman on Australian pitches against Australian bowlers is a much more difficult task than scoring runs against Indian bowlers on Australian wickets.
Kohli's performance cannot be undermined because Smith scored heavily as well.
Azhar / YK scored tons on pitches with lateral movement and extra bounce in England.
Younis is a veteran of 100 Tests and 16 years so a direct comparison with Kohli is futile. However, Kohli is a much better batsman at 28 than Younis was at 28. There is no doubt that by the time Kohli retires, he will be well ahead of Younis.
Yes Azhar did better than Kohli in England, but Kohli did better than Azhar in SA and NZ. In Australia, Kohli has 5 hundreds already which Azhar will do extremely well to match over his whole career.
So how is Azhar better? Is England the only place where performance matters? Is it fine to do well in England only?
If everyone is getting runs, logic says it's easier to score. Re-check batting averages.
Kohli towered over every Indian batsman. Vijay, Rahane and KL Rahul collectively scored 3 centuries while Kohli scored 4 on his own.
He scored 200 runs more than the next best Indian batsman (Vijay), and only Smith scored more runs who was playing on home pitches and was facing an inferior bowling attack. In spite of that, Kohli scored the same number of hundreds as Smith and his hundred in the second innings of the first Test was on a pitch that was breaking up and turning sharply.
Lyon took 7 wickets and other Indian batsmen were struggling.
Australia's next best batsman (Warner) scored 250 runs less than Kohli.
His average was also a good 20 runs higher than anyone except Smith.
Keeping these facts in mind, what logic are you talking about?
Don't be an uncle sam bruh.
I'm not being an Uncle Sam or an Uncle Tom; I'm just stating the obvious, i.e. Kohli is a superior batsman to Azhar. It is just sad that you don't realize how foolish you are making yourself look by disagreeing with this obvious assessment.
Conduct a poll on PP or ask the neutral audience. Azhar will do well to even have 10% of the people vote in his favor.
So far Azhar and Shafiq drew a series for us in England. Where Kohli was pathetic (again I don't watch Indian cricket but apologies if he managed to get out in a way that was unlucky for him all the time
)
Once again, is Test cricket all about England? Azhar and Shafiq were also part of the team that embarrassed themselves in Zimbabwe and drew the series. Both had poor outings.
Based on that, should we say that they are pathetic batsmen because they couldn't even score runs against Zimbabwe and help their team win?
In a series where record number of runs were scored
Read above explanation regarding Kohli's performance in Australia and how it is incredibly stupid to undermine it.
Time has already told us. Kohli is simply better than Azhar.
Again, I only watch Pak but IIRC Sanga did pretty well there. No idea about saffers tho.
Then please watch more cricket before you come with more such gems. Sangakkara did well there but no Asian batsman has come even close to Kohli in Australia. He has more Test hundreds in two tours of Australia than some of the great Asian batsmen over their whole careers.
No it does not. But it also doesn't make him a "god".
Google 'figure of speech'.
He is a hard worker and has won series for Pak.
Kohli too is one of the hardest working cricketers. He is probably the fittest player in the world at the moment and you don't get there without working hard. Compare his current physique to his physique 3-4 years ago and see the improvements he has made.
India are number one in Test rankings.
Kohli has scored the most number of runs for India in the last 2 years.
Obviously he has no contribution in India winning matches.
Also, allow me to point out another logical fallacy in your argument. Azhar only scored in the Birmingham Test and we lost that match, so he really didn't 'help' us draw the series.
Yasir Shah, Misbah, Shafiq and Younis Khan made big contributions in the matches that we won.
IMO that makes him better than Kohli.
Yes, scoring a match-losing hundred in England makes Azhar a better batsman than Kohli.
Now let me state why Kohli is a better batsman than Azhar.
He averages 16 runs higher than Azhar outside Asia and has 8 hundreds compared to Azhar's 1.
He has a better record in SA and NZ and the best record ever for an Asian in Australia.
His innings/century ratio is better than Azhar even though he has played a lot more overseas Tests.
Obviously none of that matters because Azhar has a better record in England and it is the only venue that matters. Perhaps other teams should stop playing Tests and only England should host Test cricket.
If Kohli scores a match-winning 100, he will be rated as well.
A hundred is a hundred. A batsman cannot take 20 wickets for his team. Using your illogical match-winning hundred, Azhar's hundred in Birmingham must be useless since it wasn't match-winning? No, it was great innings, it is not his fault others did not perform.
Similarly, it is not Kohli's fault that some of his hundreds have not been match-winning because of the failures of the other players.
You can't fault a player who scores 4 hundreds and 600 runs in 4 Tests in Australia but doesn't win any one of them. He can't do more than that at an individual level.
Sreesanth was part of the Indian team that won the Test series in England in 2007. Since he helped his team win a series in England, he must be a better bowler than Asif and Amir if I follow your logic?
delusional*
and....
PakPassion servers will crash at the level of irony in this statement of yours. Someone who is calling Azhar a better batsman than Kohli is accusing another person of being delusional.
and it is the most pathetic site ever when a Pakistani tries so hard to become Indian
Congratulations. You just won the PakPassion Award for the Most Original Post. You are the first person in history of PakPassion to accuse me of trying hard to be an Indian, simply because I am merely stating facts here. Apparently it is not possible for an Indian player to better than a Pakistani player.
No need. You are already scoring enough own goals and throwing enough mud at yourself.
Yasir has a match-winning 10fer in England. If Jadeja/Ashwin do it, then yep they are better than YS.
Once again, Test cricket is not played in England only. In the long run, Yasir, Ashwin and Jadeja will be judged on their overall overseas record.
Whoever does better in England + Australia + South Africa + New Zealand will be rated as the better spinner.
Performing better in 1 country means nothing, whether if it is Yasir or Ashwin.
Exactly
Azhar > Kohli
Yasir > Random Indian spinner
No, stop embarrassing yourself. The gulf between Kohli and Azhar is as big as the gulf between Yasir and Jadeja.
A word of advice: support the team and be a loyal fan, but that does not mean that you act like a 10 year old whose toy is simply better because it is his.
Absolutely no shame in admitting that Kohli is simply a better batsman than Azhar, even if you are the biggest Pakistan cricket fan in the world.
