Former Pakistan legendary batsman believes that Virat Kohli doesn’t belong to the same league of former greats like Sachin Tendulkar or Rahul Dravid.
Yousuf represented Pakistan at a time when the likes of Sachin and Dravid dominated the world cricket. In an interview with the Geo Super Channel, the batsman said, “The quality of cricket nowadays does not match the quality we had in the past. Virat Kohli is a very good batsman and I like to watch him play but I don”t think he is in the same league of Tendulkar, Dravid or Laxman.”
Yousuf while explaining his stance on Sachin and Dravid said, “I think Tendulkar and Dravid are greats because they scored runs against quality bowlers and teams. To get runs against the likes of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Shoaib Akhtar or Saqlain Mushtaq was no joke. I always thought Tendulkar and Dravid were perfectionists and spent so much time on improving their game. I learned from them.” Yousuf heaped a lot of praise for the Indian greats.
The former player reckons that the changes in rules have made the batsman’s game a lot simpler and the pitches also seem to favor the batsman these days. Unlike Sachin and Dravid, he believes that the current Indian team players scores tons of runs against weaker bowling attacks.
“I am not saying Virat is not a class act. He is, but times have changed now,” he went on to add.
Mohammad Yousuf represented Pakistan in 90 Test matches and 288 ODIs scoring 39 centuries and 97 half centuries in both the formats. He scored more than 17000 international runs and has been the mainstay of Pakistan batting over a span of 12 years.
