‘Stop comparing him to Virat Kohli’ - Ex-Pakistan cricketer lashes out at Babar Azam after his side’s 3-0 Test series loss at home

On 20 December 2022, Pakistan registered another loss against England in the Karachi Test. With that loss, England managed to whitewash them at their home in the three-match Test series. Ben Stokes and his men came to Pakistan to play a Test series after a long gap of 17 years. But, Babar Azam and his team were nowhere near their beast when it mattered most throughout the series.

It was a great and historical moment for the Men in Green and their fans when the series kicked off on 1 December 2022. But, the result disappointed them and they started to blame Babar Azam for his poor captaincy. Former Pakistan spinner, Danish Kaneria also slammed Babar and urged fans to stop comparing him with Virat Kohli.

“Babar Azam is a big zero as captain.” - Danish Kaneria

While speaking on his official YouTube channel, Danish Kaneria said: "People should stop comparing Babar Azam to Virat Kohli. The likes of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma are very big players. Pakistan have nobody in their team who can be compared to them. If you make them talk, they will be a king. When you ask them to produce results, they'll be zero."

"Babar Azam is a big zero as captain. He doesn't deserve to lead the team. He is not capable of leading the team, especially when it comes to Test cricket. He had a good chance of learning captaincy by looking at Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum during the series. Or, he could have kept his ego aside and asked Sarfaraz Ahmed how to captain," Kaneria concluded.   

With this loss, Babar became the first Pakistan captain to lose four Test matches on home soil in a calendar year. However, he batted well as Babar Azam scored 348 runs in six innings, at an average of 58. After the Karachi Test, during the post-match presentation, Babar said: "Disappointing series as a team. We weren't good enough to fight back but credit also goes to England. They played really well. We lost (this game) in the first innings. We were good in patches but not consistent overall. (Bowling) It has been a challenge when your best bowlers are not fit. We have a lot of positives to take from this series to take into the next one but we also have to fix up our mistakes too."