- By Himanshu Badola
- Sun, 09 Jul 2023 04:33 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
JE Sports Desk: Former India cricketer Aakash Chopra has made a sensational remark as he gave his take on 'Fab 4', a term used for the group of top batters of Test cricket in the current generation.
'Fab 4' features the likes of Australia opener Steve Smith, former England skipper Joe Root, New Zealand batter Kane Williamson, and star India batter Virat Kohli.
Virat, who went through a rough patch with the bat, having not scored any international century since November 2019, is not a part of the 'Fab 4' according to Chopra who considered the current form of all the four players.
Both Smith and Root are considered successful batters and inform players of all four as per the current situation. The duo has been scoring loads of runs for their respective teams for a while and doing nothing different in the ongoing Ashes series in England.
"Kane and Joe Root, no question about it. Steve Smith, averaging 50 with six hundred, no question about him. But David Warner and Virat Kohli, at this point in time, are not a part of Fab 4. There's no Fab 4 right now, there's Fab 3," Chopra said on his YouTube channel.
The former opening batter mentioned considering Babar Azam for a place in the elite group but said that he is not fit to be placed in 'Fab 4' yet.
"You might think of adding Babar Azam's name in there. But while there's no doubt that he has scored runs in Test cricket, I don't think he is part of Fab 4 at the moment. I'm only talking about Test matches here," said Chopra.
"Joe Root, Kane Williamson, and Steve Smith are there, but Virat Kohli has slipped out of that list, and so has Warner. Kohli might actually come back but I'm not sure about Warner. The latter's Test career, I think, is coming to an end," he added.
Virat ended his century drought in Test cricket with a century against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy earlier this year but already had reached triple figures in both ODIs and T2OIs.
His recent top-notch and match-winning performance came against Pakistan at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia where he smashed unbeaten 82 runs to give India a memorable win.
However, the former Indian skipper had a disappointing outing in the World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia at The Oval where he only managed the scores of 14 and 49.
He will be seen in action against West Indies in the all-format series, starting from July 12 with two Tests.