Former England captain Michael Vaughan has come in the news recently when he claimed that since Virat Kohli is from India, everyone believes he is the best batter in recent times which earns him more clicks and likes. He also claimed that Kane Williamson is way better than Kohli. However, former Pakistan player Salman Butt has taken a dig at his comment and said that the veteran does this only to stay in the limelight as well.
“Kohli belongs to a country whose population is among the top-two. Obviously, he would have a bigger fanbase,” Butt said on his YouTube channel. “On top of that, his performance is better too. Virat has 70 international tons at the moment, no other batsman from this era has that many. He has dominated batting charts for a long time because his performances have been outstanding. So I don’t understand why is there a need to draw comparisons.”
Salman Butt also said that Vaughan had played 86 ODIs without hitting a single hundred and his own record isn’t that interesting enough to talk about. On the other hand, Virat Kohli and scoring centuries can be synonyms as well. Moreover, Kohli, Williamson, Steve Smith, Joe Root and Babar Azam are considered as the fab-five batters of the current situation. Butt also said if there’s one area where Williamson is ahead of them is in terms of captaincy.
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“And who has compared the two? Michael Vaughan. A brilliant captain, looked good while batting but the output wasn’t that good. A good Test batsman but never scored a single century in ODIs. Now, as an opener, if you haven’t scored a century, then the record isn’t not worth discussion. He has the knack of saying something controversial and stir up a debate. People also have a lot of time to make mountain out of a mole,” Butt said.
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“Williamson is great. He’s a top-class batsman and the best in the world. There is no doubt. If we talk about the fabulous five in world cricket, he’s very much there. Among these five, if you are analysing anyone solely on the basis of captaincy, tactically everyone is good. But Williamson is slightly ahead of them in terms of this. Vaughan though has maybe compared on the basis of record. Kohli’s stats and performance put him way ahead of others,” Salman Butt concluded.
