Virat Kohli "Didn't Score 70 Tons Playing Candy Crush": Ex-Pakistan Star's Out Of The Box Take On Star

Pakistan's fast-bowling great Shoaib Akhtar has hit out at Virat Kohli's critics and reminded them that the former India captain's 70 international hundreds weren't scored in "aunt's backyard" or while playing "candy crush video game". Kohli's painfully long lean patch of nearly three years has led to calls for his ouster from the T20 World Cup team, with even the legendary Kapil Dev voicing support for his exclusion.

While Akhtar said he respects Dev's opinion that continuing with the woefully out-of-form Kohli is unfair to a performing junior, the Pakistani reminded everyone that it takes a lot of effort to score 43 ODI and 27 Test hundreds.

"Kapil Dev is my senior and he has an opinion and it is fine to have an opinion. If Kapil Dev says, you still understand as he is a great cricketer. He has the right to air his opinion," Akhtar said on his YouTube channel.

"But, as a Pakistani, why am I supporting Kohli? Well, he has 70 hundreds. Woh 70 sau khaala ke ghar mein ya candy crush khelte huye nahi banein hain. (Those 70 tons were not scored in his aunt's backyard or while playing Candy Crush)."

Akhtar is at pains to understand how does one even harbour thoughts of dropping a player of Kohli's calibre.

"How did you even imagine in your wildest dreams that Kohli can be dropped from Indian team?" "Virat Kohli is finished? Ok, fair enough. Virat Kohli should be dropped? Agreed. Now when I hear these things, I laugh and tell people, 'Virat has been the greatest batter in the world in the last 10 years.

"Yes, he has had a couple of lean years and even in those years, he has scored runs if not hundreds. Suddenly everyone getting up in arms against him, such a great player and a human being isn't right," the 'Rawalpindi Express'