The Pakistan player is in the limelight for his miscontrued comments on social media, facing the brunt of the Indian fans for remarks on Kohli.
Pakistan’s out-of-favour opening batter Khurram Manzoor is in the spotlight for a few controversy-fuelling remarks on Indian batting great Virat Kohli. Manzoor made a staggering statement, highlighting a stat wherein his List A conversion to hundreds was better than Kohli’s.
While the ageing player, who last played for Pakistan in 2016, was only stating a fact and a record, his remarks went viral for making a comparison with Kohli, who is inarguably the best ODI player in the world.
Speaking to Nadir Ali on his YouTube channel, Manzoor claimed himself to be the No.1 List A batter in the world, pointing to stats pertaining to the players with the best conversation rate in the globe, where he stood one spot above even Kohli at No.2.
Even though Manzoor’s point concerned the Pakistani selectors who continue to ignore him, his words shocked the passionate Virat Kohli fans in India, who criticised the cricketer and let him know their displeasure about his remarks.
In his exact quotes made on the YouTube channel, Manzoor had said: “I am not comparing myself with Virat Kohli. Fact is, in 50-overs cricket, whoever are there in the top-10, I am the world no.1. After me stands Kohli. My conversion rate in List A cricket is better than him. He scores a century every six innings. I score century every 5.68 innings. And based on my average of 53, over the last 10 years, I am ranked fifth in the world in List A cricket.”
“I also have scored 24 centuries in the last 48 innings. Between 2015 and now, whoever has opened for Pakistan, I still remain the leading scorer among them. I am also the top scorer and century getter in national T20. Yet I get ignored. And nobody has ever given me a solid reason for that,” he added.
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But upon seeing a massive furore in relation to his Kohli-based comments, Manzoor stood resurrected on his remarks and re-clarified what he exactly meant via a Twitter thread posted on his official handle.
“Its funny how some media outlets and individuals have taken my interview out of context and twisted my words. Virat Kohli is a generational player and I have always admired him as the best.”
“I talked about this stat in List A Cricket about having best innings per hundred ratio where I am topping the chart and Kohli is on second. There is no comparison between me and him, he has played more games and that too mostly on international level,” he tweeted.
My team has just checked that as per the updated stats Virat has taken that record away from me and now he has a better ratio than me and rightly so, as I said, he is a generational talent.
— Khurram Manzoor Khan (@_khurrammanzoor) January 26, 2023
In a further clarification, Manzoor corrected the stat after being told that Kohli has inched past him with his string of recent centuries in 50-overs cricket for India.
“My team has just checked that as per the updated stats, Virat has taken that record away from me and now he has a better ratio than me and rightly so, as I said, he is a generational talent,” he tweeted.
