Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur compared \u2018young gun\u2019 Babar Azam to Virat Kohli on Thursday, saying the 22-year-old reminded him of the India skipper at the same age.<\/p>\n
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Batsman Azam has played only three Tests, narrowly missing out on a century in Pakistan\u2019s loss to New Zealand in Hamilton this week when he was left unbeaten on 90 as the side was bowled out.<\/p>\n
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In his 18 one-dayers, he has scored three centuries, all of which came in consecutive matches against the West Indies earlier this year.<\/p>\n
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\u2018He (Azam) is a young gun who will be an exceptional player,\u2019 Arthur told Perth\u2019s 6PR radio ahead of Pakistan\u2019s sole warm-up match for their three-Test series against Australia.<\/p>\n
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\u2018I\u2019ll go so far as to say, at the same age, I reckon he\u2019s as good as Virat Kohli, which I know that\u2019s high praise but he\u2019s right up there.\u2019<\/p>\n
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Pakistan have resisted the temptation to change and retained the same 16-man squad for Australia that lost the recent series against New Zealand 2-0.<\/p>\n
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For South African Arthur, it will be his first time facing Australia since he coached them over a two-year tenure that ended in June 2013.<\/p>\n
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He said Pakistan were ready to fire against an Australia Test team coming off a demoralising 2-1 series loss to South Africa and had learned a lot in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
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\u2018Had that series gone another Test match, we would have been better for the conditions,\u2019 he said of the New Zealand tour.<\/p>\n
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\u2018Hopefully, this has put us in good stead for what we can experience in Australia.\u2019<\/p>\n
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Pakistan play a three-day pink-ball clash next week against a Cricket Australia XI in Cairns before the first Test – a day-night affair in Brisbane – from December 15.<\/p>\n
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The remaining two Tests are in Melbourne (December 26-30) and Sydney (January 3-7).<\/p>\n
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They will also play five one-day internationals in Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur compared ‘young gun’ Babar Azam to Virat Kohli on Thursday, saying the 22-year-old reminded him of the India skipper at the same age. Batsman Azam has played only three Tests, narrowly missing out on a century in Pakistan’s loss to New Zealand in Hamilton this week when he was left unbeaten on 90 as the side was bowled out. In his 18 one-dayers, he has scored three centuries, all of which came in consecutive matches against the West Indies earlier this year. ‘He<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4339,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4337"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4340,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4337\/revisions\/4340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}