Virat Kohli reveals he was better off not facing Shoaib Akhtar during his career

One of the major debatable points, why Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar cannot be compared with modern chase master Virat Kohli, is the quality of bowlers the two greats faced. Kohli might have faced the likes of Mohammad Amir, Mitchell Johnson, and James Anderson but these bowlers cannot match the stature of Glenn Mcgrath, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Courtney Walsh.

There exists a school of thought which professes that Kohli might not have accumulated the number of international runs he already has, had he faced the greats from the Sachin Tendulkar era. One of the finest bowlers during the Sachin era was the Rawalpindi Express, Shoaib Akhtar.

Renowned for terrorizing batsmen with his lethal pace and bounce, Shoaib created havoc with the opposition’s camp quite a number of times over his glittering career. It is a matter of great travesty that the careers of Akhtar and Kohli couldn’t quite overlap as it would potentially have been a riveting contest.

In an up close and personal chat with the captain of the Indian cricket team on the popular talk show ‘Breakfast with Champions’ hosted by Gaurav Kapur, one saw a different flavour of Virat. The notoriousness and cheekiness of Kohli was there for one and all to see which is usually hidden due to the burden of captaincy.

In one of the segments of the show, Virat Kohli was asked which bowler he thinks he was better off while staying put at the non-striker’s end. To which Kohli replied by taking the name of Shoaib Akhtar.

“I never faced Shoaib Akhtar but I saw him bowl in Dambulla. Even in the latter part of his career, he looked lethal. After watching Shoaib Akhtar, I thought when he was at his peak, would’ve been better to be at non-striker’s end when he was bowling,” claimed Kohli taking us back several years during the Asia Cup held in 2009 at Dambulla.

Here’s the entire conversation