The quartet of Steve Smith, Joe Root, Kane Williamson, and Virat Kohli is popularly acclaimed as the ‘Fab Four’ in world cricket, due to their sheer versatility in all three formats of the game.
With changing times, the pecking order must also change, and so it did for Hindi commentator Aakash Chopra, who removed the likes of Root and Smith from his ‘Fab Four’ list. In fact, the English and the Australian batting stalwarts have not featured in T20I cricket off late.
Moreover, Chopra, in his recent YouTube video, replaced Root and Smith with Babar Azam and Rohit Sharma.
Babar Azam is indispensable in any list of great batsmen in the modern era, due to his glorious record in all formats of the game.
Chopra cited Azam’s rankings in all formats of the game, as the primary reason for him being included in the new ‘Fab Four’. Babar Azam has topped the T20I batting charts for a while now.
Also, Azam is within the Top 5 ranking for batsmen in Tests and ODIs, which makes Chopra draw parallels of him with Kohli.
Further, after due consideration, Chopra named Rohit Sharma ahead of David Warner in his new ‘Fab Four’ list, with Sharma’s Test career on the ascendancy.
However, Warner’s record in Tests away from home was the reason which held him back from being included in Chopra’s new ‘Fab Four’ list.
“I would keep Pakistan’s Babar Azam in the fab four. He stands shoulder to shoulder with India’s Virat Kohli. He is the number one batsman in T20Is, number-three in ODIs and number five in Test cricket. If you are in the top five in all three formats then how can you not be in the fab four of world cricket? He should be included in the fab four a 120 percent,” Chopra stated in his video.
