Babar Seems To Reach 10,000-run-benchmark After Younis: Rashid Latif

Former Pakistani gloveman Rashid Latif has predicted that the limited-overs skipper Babar Azam seems like the player to reach the 10,000-run-benchmark after the 2009 World Twenty20 winning captain Younis Khan

ISLAMABAD, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 3rd Jul, 2020 ) :Former Pakistani gloveman Rashid Latif has predicted that the limited-overs skipper Babar Azam seems like the player to reach the 10,000-run-benchmark after the 2009 World Twenty20 winning captain Younis Khan.

"We can predict the future that after Younis, Babar is looking like the player to score 10,000 runs. Because Asad Shafiq and Azhar Ali don't have enough time to play and reach the 10,000 run-mark," he said in a video while talking to Dr Nauman Niaz on YouTube channel Caught Behind.

Younis became the first Pakistani and 13th ever batsmen to score 10,000 runs in Test cricket on April 23, 2017, whereas Babar currently stands at 1,850 runs in 26 Tests.

On Babar's statement that he would feel proud if people compared him with Pakistani greats like Javed Miandad, Inzamam-ul-Haq and others, instead of Virat Kohli, Latif said comparison was always done with current players like Steve Smith, Kane Williamson, Joe Root, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli etc.

"Noboby compared Babar with Indian Sunil Gavaskar or Sachin Tendulkar as everyone does comparison with current players. You (Babar) are the No 1 or No 2 kind of player in the world whether it's Twenty20, ODI or Test. Once you reach the Miandad, Zaheer Abbas, Inzamam and Younis, benchmark you will be compared with them," Rashid, who served as captain in 2003, leading the country in six tests and 25 ODIs, said.

Rashid Latif, who played for Pakistan in Tests and ODIs, between 1992 and 2003 as a wicket-keeper right-handed batsman, said it felt like as if Babar was told to take the Names of former Pakistani greats as to create diversion. "It is good you took the name of our greats. But during the current situation when you will play England the press will ask you the same question on comparison with Kohli," he said.

To a question, Rashid said Umar Akmal and Ahmed Shehzad were wrongly compared with Kohli. "Babar is a deserving player and has the same class to be compared with Kohli. Umar is a good player but he can't be compared to the Indian Skipper. Babar has performed everywhere in the world while Younis has also performed throughout," he said.

To a question, he said Zaheer Abbas was a wristy-player and he scored two double centuries against England on the tour.

Abbas made his Test match debut in 1969 and in his second Test he scored 274 against England, still the sixth-ever highest score by a Pakistani batsman. This was the first of his four Test double-centuries, only two men from Pakistan (Younis Khan and Javed Miandad) have scored more.