Babar Azam vs Virat Kohli: A statistical comparison between two star batters

Babar Azam has been considered the rising star of Pakistan ever since he made his debut in 2015. He burst onto the scene grandly in international cricket as he smashed three consecutive hundreds in his first three ODI games. Babar has been always hailed as Pakistan’s best-ever batter and is compared with Indian great Virat Kohli by the fans. The Pakistan captain overtook the former Indian captain to become the world’s No 1 batter in ODI cricket in April 2021 and has held that rank ever since then.

The star Pakistani batter has also broken the record of being the number 1 batter in T20Is for the longest period recently which was also held by Kohli. As Babar is surpassing Kohli’s records, let’s take a look at how the two batsmen fare against each other after Kohli had played the same no of games as Babar has played currently.

Babar vs Kohli in Tests

After 41 Test matches, Kohli had scored 2994 runs at an average of 44.02 while Babar currently has 2970 runs in the same number of games averaging 47.14. Kohli had 11 hundreds and 12 fifties after playing 41 Tests while Babar has 7 hundreds and 21 fifties. Kohli had a better conversion rate after his first 41 Tests while Babar has a better average. The contest is even between the two in Test cricket at the moment.

Babar vs Kohli in ODIs

After 89 matches in ODIs, the Pakistani batter has 4442 runs at an average of 59.23 with 17 hundreds to his name. While Kohli on the other hand had 3863 runs at an average of 52 with 13 hundreds to his name. Babar seems to be winning this battle clearly as there’s a stark difference between the number of runs and hundreds scored by the two batters.

Babar vs Kohli in T20Is

After playing 74 matches currently, Babar has 2686 runs to his name at an average of 45 with one hundred and 26 fifties. While Kohli at the same- time had 2563 runs at an average of 51 with 23 fifties to his name. The Pakistani batter has a strike rate of 129.25 while Kohli had a strike rate of 136.47. The star Indian batter seems to be winning the battle in T20Is as he has a better average and strike rate as compared to Babar.

The battle between the two heavy-weights seems to be even-steven at the moment with Babar giving tough competition to Kohli’s extraordinary numbers from the past across all three formats. It will be interesting to see if Babar is able to score runs at impressive consistency as he’s doing at the moment to keep challenging Kohli going ahead in his career.