His comparisons with Virat Kohli and Babar Azam may have already started doing the rounds but Pakistan cricket’s rising talent Haider Ali has revealed that India’s limited-overs vice-captain Rohit Sharma is his idol and he would want to bat like the India opener in future.
“My idol is Rohit Sharma. The best thing about him is his strike rate and I want that in my game,” said the 19-year-old Haider Ali in a video with Cricket Pakistan.
Haider is a right-handed batsman who scored 239 runs in 9 Pakistan Super League (PSL) matches for the Peshawar Zalmi’s before the league was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
His attacking style of batting and stroke-making had impressed one and all in the PSL, which even prompted former Pakistan batsman Ramiz Raja to term him as talented as Virat Kohli and Babar Azam.
‘‘Haider has immense talent and has made a name for himself in his first season of PSL,’’ Raja said in a Youtube video.
‘‘However, he needs to bring consistency in his performance and his ideal position is number three in the batting order. He has big quality shots in his armour and doesn’t need to improvise much as his power-hitting base is quite strong.’’
‘‘Haider needs to follow the approach of Babar Azam and Virat Kohli. These two doesn’t improvise much as they have so much talent and rely mainly on conventional shots. Haider has a similar talent as Babar and Kohli, but just needs to work on his game awareness and play longer innings,’’ he added.
Haider has scored 645 runs in 7 first-class matches at an impressive average of 49.61.
