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Shoaib Akhtar may have retired from cricket, but he’s still going strong in keeping it alive on media. More often than required, former pacer would take to social media and utter words or give out statements on television that either doesn’t make much sense or are out of context. Yes, it’s not always the same way, but most of the time it is.
His most recent utterance came out a few days ago when he was being interviewed by a local TV channel. According to the star pacer, Babar Azam the Pakistan skipper and who is positioned at the top of ICC T20I and ODI charts can’t break India’s great Sachin Tendulkar’s 100-century record in Tests/ODIs. . He thinks only the former Indian skipper Virat Kohli possesses this capability pitting the two against each other.
“I don’t think Babar can break Tendulkar’s record. Only Kohli can break Tendulkar’s record.”
Is Babar really Incapable of Breaking Sachin’s record?
First of all, it would be a tad unfair to derive conclusions that too between players who are either fairly new, almost in the middle, and done and dusted with their cricketing career which is exactly what Babar, Virat and Sachin are respectively. But if one has ample time and nothing else to do, and a comparison is absolutely needed, then it’s imperative to take a glance at what the stats say
| Player | Format | Innings Played | Centuries | Career |
| Sachin Tendulkar | Tests | 329 | 51 | 24 years |
| ODI | 452 | 49 | 23 years | |
| Virat Kohli | Tests | 168 | 27 | 11 years |
| ODI | 251 | 43 | 14 years | |
| Babar Azam | Tests | 66 | 5 | 5 years |
| ODI | 81 | 14 | 6 years |
While Virat has managed to bag 70 centuries and is only 30 behind the great Sachin Tendulkar he has played far fewer innings as compared to the legend and Babar Azam doesn’t even fit in the equation as he has started playing Tests/ODI’s only 5-6 years ago. Besides this, the number of innings played between the three is starkly different. Babar is yet to cross the 100 mark while Virat is drawing in close to Tendulkar.
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Can Virat Kohli do it?
Yes, it is true that Kohli might snap the cricket giant’s ODI record since only seven hundred are needed to do that but Virat’s current form and the recent controversies he’s gone through say otherwise. As far as the Tests are concerned, he might be able to hit a few more but breaking a record seems a little out of question. But since cricket is a game of unpredictability one doesn’t really know.
Shoaib Akhtar might be missing a record
Granted the Pakistan skipper is a magician with the bat and Kohli is a master on his own, but it doesn’t seem right that such unbalanced statements are coming from Shoaib Akhtar, a person who himself is the master of the trade, seems a little absurd. And with all the knowledge Shoaib Akhtar has, he failed to notice that Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar are yet to break Babar’s T20I century record since both of the Indian cricket legends have none. While Virat might break it in future, there is no chance Sachin is ever breaking it. How about that!
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