If you think Virat Kohli is good to watch, have a look at Babar Azam: Tom Moody
Former Australian allrounder Tom Moody said that Pakistan's Babar Azam will definitely be in top-5 Tests batsmen in the next five to ten years. Moody feels Babar is a special talent and compared him with Indian skipper Virat Kohli.
“He [Babar] has emerged over the last year or so into something that is going to be so special. We talked about how Virat Kohli is so good on the eye as a batsman. If you think Virat Kohli is good to watch, have a look at Babar Azam bat. My gosh, he is something special,” said Moody on The Pitch Side Experts Podcast alongside former West Indies cricketer Ian Bishop and cricket analyst Freddie Wilde.
“I think in the next five to ten years, he will definitely be in your top five [batsmen of the decade] without a question,” the Sunrisers Hyderabad coach added.
Babar has played only 26 Test matches till now and Moody claims that it's not right to justify his stats with the talent he posses, because of his inconsistent batting position during the initial phase of his career.
“I think, in the next 5-10 years, he will be on your top five position. Even though he [Babar] has played 26 matches but in half of those matches, he was not considered even part of the main batting line-up for Pakistan. He was the after-thought down the order,” he said.
The 25-year-old has mostly played at Asian soil and Moody feels it's not fair to criticize him on overseas stats as he has played lesser there.
“I think at the moment, it is very hard to justify him at that position given his statistics. Away from home he is only averaging 37 and at home he is averaging 67. But we have to consider that he has hardly played away from home and a lot of those games away were during the early part of his career,” Moody added.
Babar is the only batsman apart from Virat Kohli to be listed in current ICC top 10 rankings in all three formats. Kohli is first in Test, second in ODIs and tenth in Tests rankings, meanwhile, Babar holds the top spot in T20I, fifth in Tests and third in the 50-over format.
