Babar Azam, the captain of Pakistan, has long dominated the ICC T20I rankings as the top-ranked hitter and often shattering records. However, the star opener has recently been under fire for his batting strike rate, which critics claim is the main cause of Pakistan's struggles in T20I format along with Mohammad Rizwan. Ramiz Raja, the head of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), reacted angrily to these comments by making a big Virat Kohli statement in response.

Ramiz acknowledged that the Pakistani squad did not perform well in the Asia Cup final versus Sri Lanka, where they were the favourites, but felt that the criticism of the team had been a little too harsh. Ramiz was speaking in an interview with Samaa TV.

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Ramiz defended his position by claiming that after Kohli's century against Afghanistan, Indian supporters and the media had completely forgotten about their Asia Cup run, in which they had failed to get to the final despite being the clear favorites to win the tournament. The seasoned player believes that if Babar had hit a hundred runs, Pakistani fans would not have reacted the same way and instead would have criticised him for his strike rate.

“Previously we used to falter at the very first hurdle. Yes we reached the final and yes we did not play well. But it's okay to have a bad day. But there were others teams as well in the Asia Cup. I mean then India should then have been severely criticised for not reaching the final. But that is not what their fans and media do. I'll tell you...when Virat Kohli scored a century against Afghanistan, they forgot their entire Asia Cup. Will we ever do that? What we say is that Babar Azam scored a ton, but his strike rate was 135 while David Warner's was 147.3. So this is useless,” he said.

Ind vs SA, 1st ODI: India won the toss, choose to bowl, match will be of 40-40 overs