Follow UsDespite suffering a loss of form in recent times, former Indian captain Virat Kohli ranks above his rest for his abilities, said former Australian allrounder Shane Watson.
Kohli is enduring a lean patch in his Test career. Since 2020, the 33-year old has no hundreds to his name in the longest format and averages 28.3 from the last 30 innings during this period.
"In Test match cricket, I am always going to say Virat Kohli," Watson said when asked who he thought is the best Test batter in the world, in his latest episode of the ICC Review.
"It's nearly superhuman, what he is able to do because he has such high intensity every time he goes out to play," he added.
Watson ranked Pakistan skipper Babar Azam in the second place for adapting his game across format. Azam, fresh off his twin hundreds against Australia, is currently ranked fifth among Test batters behind Australian duo Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, New Zealand captain Kane Williamson and England captain Joe Root.
"Babar Azam is playing incredibly well. (It's great) to be able to see how he has adapted his game to really move his game to Test cricket as well. Babar Azam would probably be No.2 at the moment," Watson said.
Smith, after dominating the batting charts in the 2019 Ashes, has been unable to scale the heights and has managed just one hundred from 21 innings since the beginning of 2020.
"It looks like Smith has really started to play for time a little bit more and is not putting as much pressure on the bowlers as he did when was at his absolute best. For me, Steve has dropped down that list a little bit," Watson said.
Among the top five batter, Root has been a dominant force irrespective England's poor run of results in the longest format. The right hander has scored 2,530 runs from 52 innings at an average of 51.63 including eight hundreds and as many fifties in the two years.
"Joe Root recently scored a hundred but he has had a bit of time along the lines of Steve Smith where he hasn't been able to nail the big scores like he has done in the past," Watson said.
"It's incredible how these world-class batters just go through waves where instead of scoring those big hundreds, get the 70s-80s, but still have an impact on the game but are not able to really maintain that really high standard of getting those big runs as they have done in the past," Watson added.
(With inputs from PTI)