Former Pakistan skipper Salman Butt feels that Australia great Ricky Ponting shouldn’t have compared Suryakumar Yadav and former South Africa cricketer AB de Villiers. Ponting was all praise for Suryakumar, who is presently the 2nd ranked batter in ICC T20I rankings. Talking on the ICC review, Ponting had said that Surykumar’s 360-degree way of batting reminds him of de Villiers. In any case, Ponting’s remarks didn’t go down well with Butt, who feels that world cricket has not seen a batter of de Villiers’s caliber.
“The kind of cricket AB de Villiers played, I feel no one in even recent history has ever played like him. The kind of impact he had, opposition teams knew that if you cannot dismiss him you cannot win the match. There is Root, Williamson, Kohli as well who has been world no.1 batter and has scored incredible hundreds. Rohit Sharma on his day has scored 250 runs in ODIs. So, maybe Ponting had a jet lag,” Butt said in a video uploaded on his YouTube channel.
Butt was of the opinion that Ponting should have rather waited for Suryakumar to demonstrate his value in big tournaments prior to making this comparison.
“He has just started to play international cricket. He has talent and has played well. But comparing him straight to AB de Villiers? Ponting should have waited a bit more. He is yet to play in big tournaments. The fact is that there hasn’t been a player like AB de Villiers. You can maybe compare him with Viv Richards,” Butt further stated.