Virat Kohli is more enterprising than Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar: Mudassar Nazar

Indian skipper Virat Kohli hasn’t been among a lot of runs lately. However, the former Pakistan batter Mudassar Nazar has come forward to back him and has pinned his hopes on Kohli to bounce back stronger.

Kohli looked in fine touch in the second half of the IPL. In India’s opening fixture of the T20 World Cup against Pakistan, he held the fort of the side and hit a half-century, taking the team to a respectable total. However, considering the benchmarks the batter has set for himself and given his heroics with the bat in the past, he hasn’t looked at his absolute best recently.

Nazar drew Kohli’s parallels with Indian batting legends Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar, and stated that the Indian skipper is more enterprising than both of the maestros.

“The similarity between Sunil Gavaskar and Virat Kohli lies in scoring so many runs for so many years. This is why Virat is loved by so many people. Virat is more enterprising than Sunil and Sachin. All of a sudden, Virat is not scoring runs as consistently, which can happen to a player who has been playing for a long time,” Nazar wrote in his column for The Indian Express.

I see Virat Kohli coming back big-time: Mudassar Nazar

According to Nazar, most players struggles to chip in with big runs during their careers, but he also said that there are always ways to bounce back stronger. He asserted that owing to the captaincy responsibility, Kohli has played a lot of cricket under pressure. He recounted the example of Graham Gooch and pointed that just like him, Kohli too will make a stronger comeback.

“We as human beings sometimes become lazy (mentally) and start making mistakes. That’s where the coach comes in, with a quiet word that this is what you aren’t doing right, so confront the problem straight away. But we all are human beings and Virat has played his cricket under a lot of pressure. He captains India. He captained Royal Challengers Bangalore as well. And to perform day in and day out, there’s always a blip around the corner.

“I can draw a Graham Gooch analogy, who in his mid-30s, upped his game to the extent of being one of the best, finishing with close to 9,000 runs in Test cricket. I see Virat coming back big-time. Maybe, giving up Bangalore and India’s T20 captaincy will have a positive impact now,” Nazar added.