Cricket matches between two rival countries are always a sensation among their citizens. And when countries like India and Pakistan play against each other, it is always a nail-biting moment.
If talking about their players, both countries have many record-making players like Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Babar Azam, Zaheer Abbas, etc.
Cricket fans mostly explore for the better batsmen: who is better Virat or Babar? Let’s decide by comparing both.
Who is the Best Batsman: Virat Kohli vs Babar Azam
Virat Kohli is the best batsman from India and Babar Azam from Pakistan. It is a tough task to compare both and declare one as the batting GOAT, but here we have tried and come out with a few points of comparison:
1). How do they perform in test matches?
Being an older player than Babar Azam, Virat Kohli has played almost double test matches.
The number of test matches played by Babar Azam is 47 and by Virat Kohli is 108.
Scores in these test matches by Babar are 3696 and by Virat Kohli are 8340.
Centuries: 9 by Babar Azam and 28 by Virat.
Average: 48.63 (Azam) and 48.77 (Kohli).
2). ODI stats comparison between Virat Kohli and Babar Azam
Recently Babar Azam has got the number 1 world rank in ODIs for his batting skills. He also has got the title of fastest 5000 scorer.
Number of matches played by Virat Kohli: 274 and by Babar Azam: 100.
Scored runs in these matches: 12898 (Kohli) and 5089 (Azam).
Centuries: 46 by Virat and 18 by Babar
Average of Virat: 57.32 and of Babar: 59.17
Strike rate: 93.63 by Virat and 89.25 by Babar.
3). Comparison in T20Is
Virat Kohli is ranked among the top highest scorer whereas Babar is on 4th rank.
Total number of matches: 115 by Virat and 104 by Babar.
Score: 4008 by Virat and 3485 by Babar
Average: 52.73 by Virat and 41.49 by Babar
Strike rate: Virat (137.97) and Babar (128.41).
4). World Cup score
Virat has appeared in 26 matches (1030 runs) in the world cup and 25 (1141 runs) in the T20 world cup. Whereas Babar has appeared in 8 matches (474 runs) in the world cup and 13 in T20(427runs)
Conclusion
Babar Azam vs Virat Kohli centuries has no comparison as Babar is not even close to Virat. But in other comparisons, both give tough competition.