Virat Kohli a great player, No 1 at present: Mohammad Yousuf

LAHORE: Former Pakistan batsman Mohammad Yousuf has termed current India captain Virat Kohli as a "great player" and the number one batter at the moment in the world.

During a live interaction with fans on Twitter, Yousuf was asled to describe Kohli by a fan and the former Pakistan batsman said: "No 1 at the moment. Great player."

Kohli has so far played 86 Tests, 248 ODIs and 82 T20Is for India in which he has scored 7240, 11867 and 2794 runs respectively. In fact, his highest ODI score of 183 also came against Pakistan in 2012.

Yousuf, a veteran of 90 Tests, 288 ODIs and 3 T20Is, was also asked to name who is a better captain in white-ball cricket at the moment and the Pakistan legend picked New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson.

Yousuf — who is the fourth highest run-getter for Pakistan in Tests — was recently asked to pick the number one between Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting, Jacques Kallis and Kumar Sangakkara. And the 45-year-old had picked Tendulkar as No.1 followed by Lara, Ponting, Kallis and Sangakkara.

Earlier, the former Pakistan batsman had said that current crop of cricketers cannot be compared to Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and other stars from the past.

"In the past, teams such as India, Australia and South Africa had three-four quality players in the side. India, for example, had players like (Rahul) Dravid, Sachin (Tendulkar), (Virender) Sehwag, (Sourav) Ganguly, (VVS) Laxman and Yuvraj Singh. These six batsmen were playing in a single team," Yousuf said during a TV show as quoted by Cricket Pakistan.

"The current Indian team does not have such batsmen. You can't compare the current players with the class of Sachin and Dravid," he said. IANS 

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