'Why should I not praise Virat Kohli?': Shoaib Akhtar slams detractors who criticised him for praising Indian cricketers

Former Pakistan fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar has slammed the people who criticised him for praising Indian cricketers, adding that Virat Kohli deserves all the plaudits for his incredible feats in the sport.

The 45-year-old has been reviewing the performances of both Indian and Pakistani cricketers on his YouTube channel. He made no bones about Pakistan’s dismal show in England and even labelled their limited-overs captain Babar Azam a “lost cow”. He, however, heaped praise on Virat Kohli and vice-captain Rohit Sharma, and this has not gone down well with a certain section of Pakistani supporters.

In a recent interaction with Cricket Pakistan, Shoaib Akhtar addressed this issue and asked his detractors to look up Virat Kohli’s statistics before pointing fingers at him. He said:

“Why should I not praise Indian players and Virat Kohli? Is there any player in Pakistan, or all over the world, which comes close to Kohli? I don’t know why people are angry, they should go look at the stats first before criticising me. Do they want to keep the hatred in mind, that just because he is an Indian, we will not praise him?”

Virat Kohli’s mind-boggling numbers

Shoaib Akhtar called Virat Kohli the "biggest batsman in the world"

Calling Virat Kohli the “biggest batsman in the world”, Shoaib Akhtar lauded the Indian skipper for his achievements in the game:

“Kohli has 70 international hundreds right now. Who else has this many hundreds right now in international cricket? How many series has he won for India? Should I not praise him then? This is very strange. We all can see clearly he is the biggest batsman in the world. He and Rohit Sharma are performing all the time,” Shoaib further added.

At 31, Virat Kohli is already the eighth-highest run-getter – 21,901 runs in 416 internationals – in cricket history. In addition to the third-highest tally of international hundreds, Kohli has won 36 Man of the Match awards in ODIs, ahead of some of the greatest players in the game including Jacques Kallis, Ricky Ponting, Sir Viv Richards and Brian Lara.