Rohit Sharma could have had 5-6 double hundreds: Salman Butt issues clarification on his statement comparing Rohit with Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers
Former Pakistan skipper Salman Butt has been quite vocal with his thoughts about Indian captain Rohit Sharma. He believes the Indian skipper has plenty of quality and has often compared him to other modern-day greats as well.
However, sometimes, the comments made by Butt are so blunt that they often tend to be misinterpreted by the viewers of his YouTube channel. In his previous video, he stated that Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan, who are currently higher than Rohit in the ICC T20I rankings for batters, can't be compared to the Indian opener.
He also went on to opine that had the Indian captain focused more on his fitness like Virat Kohli has, he would have been as destructive as AB de Villiers. Here's what he had said:
"Unka comparison nahi banta (Rohit can't be compared with Azam and Rizwan). With his set of skills, Rohit ki fitness Kohli se aadhi bhi ho, toh usse zyada destructive player nahi hai. Fir sirf vo aur AB de Villiers hote. (With his set of skills, Rohit would be the most destructive player if his fitness levels were half as good as Kohli's. Then only he and AB de Villiers could be compared)."
However, in his latest video, the former cricketer issued a clarification on exactly what he meant when he compared Rohit's fitness to that of Kohli. He stated:
"Somebody had talked about Babar and Rizwan, I don't exactly remember the question but the intention behind my comment was to state that both of them (Babar and Rizwan) haven't even played half the cricket of Rohit Sharma. So, there's no comparison."
He added:
"But, if Rohit Sharma was half as fit as Kohli then would have been a class apart. Matlab unke jo 2-3 200 hai ho sakta hai 5-6 hote. (The 2-3 double hundreds that he has would have been 5-6) That would have added another dimension to his quality."
India release squad for ICC T20 World Cup led by Rohit Sharma
India recently released their squad for the 2022 ICC T20 World Cup, set to begin in Australia next month. The squad includes:
Rohit Sharma (captain), KL Rahul (vice-captain), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Dinesh Karthik (wicket-keeper), Hardik Pandya, R. Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Arshdeep Singh.
Standby players: Mohammed Shami, Shreyas Iyer, Ravi Bishnoi, Deepak Chahar.