“Virat Kohli Doesn’t Focus On His Average”: Mohammad Rizwan Takes Indirect Dig At Babar Azam?

Mohammad Rizwan gave the example of Virat Kohli when talking about how great players modify their game according to the situation and hailed Kohli’s team-first attitude over personal numbers.

Mohammed Rizwan’s comment of “average players look at average and big players will look at the team” has made some fans wonder whether he took an indirect swipe at teammate Babar Azam, who has faced a lot of criticism and scrutiny in his T20 career for his low strike rate.

The fans were up against Azam as recently as last month when he raised three half-centuries in the 5-T20I series in New Zealand, but Pakistan lost those three matches. His strike rate of 142 in a high-scoring series came under the scanner.

Big players like Kohli will look at the team: Mohammad Rizwan

Speaking with Cricbuzz, Mohamed Rizwan pointed out that Kohli’s batsmanship as the India star is able to mold his game according to the situation and the demand of the match.

“Firstly the teams that you are representing keep that [role] in front and if you think of yourself in that case… like players who think like let me save myself, he won’t go far. Those players who look at averages are average players,” Rizwan said.

“If someone is performing it will be there in the stats for people to see, like say India’s Virat Kohli, he is getting his average higher but he is not focusing on that because average players look at average and big players will look at the team and the situation and my focus remains on what is the requirement of the team. The team says Rizwan look at board and play accordingly. I maintain the same thing in my own life too but it is not easy. In T20 playing the new ball and in ODI go after 25 overs when the ball is a bit old that is not easy and it is a mind game.”

Babar Azam has been pushed to number 3 in the T20I team, breaking a successful opening partnership with Mohammad Rizwan.

On this, Rizwan said, “This is not the fact and what our management said, probably people have understood it in another way. Our management and captain said that we are trying out different things for the World Cup and for that we want to see what can be our best XI. Like say we can have left-right combination at the top and Saim Ayub is left-hander. There is Fakhar Zaman also… so for World Cup we were experimenting with left-right combination.”

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