Babar Azam breaks silence on ‘this too shall pass’ viral message for Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli and Babar Azam are considered as the greatest batters among modern era cricketers, with the two also sharing a healthy on-field rivalry.

Babar is currently the number one ranked batter in the 50-over format beside holding the third position in both Test and T20Is. Virat Kohli, on the other hand, is slightly below the pecking order, which is mainly due to a rare lean patch in his rich cricket journey.

For a major part of 2022, Kohli endured a string of low scores and it was during that time when a friendly camaraderie was seen between the two.

“This too shall pass. Stay strong,” Babar had then tweeted along with a photo of him and Kohli, and it didn’t take long to become a meme fest.

Now in a latest interview with ICC Digital Insider Zainab Abbas, the Pakistan skipper opened about the viral tweet. Babar said the tweet was in high spirits and sharing a mutual empathy with Kohli, with whom he wants his on-field rival to continue.

“As a sportsperson, anyone can go through such a time,” said Babar.

“At that time I thought maybe if I tweet it might give someone help and confidence. See, as a player, you try to back every sportsman in a difficult time.

“It is in difficult times when you get to know what you are thinking about others. At that time, I thought I should have done that and maybe something positive will come out of it. Something which can be a plus point.”

Kohli was then engaged with the England tour, and had not notched a century in any format for over 1000 days. At that stage, Kohli’s last century came against Bangladesh in 2019. However, he took a break right after the England tour before finding his lost mojo at the Asia Cup 2023, where he smashed a hundred against Afghanistan — also his only in T20Is so far.

Since then Kohli has gone to hit hit three ODI hundreds and smashed a match-winning 82* in the high octane clash against Babar-led Pakistan at Melbourne in the ICC T20 World Cup 2022.