'Wait, Michael Vaughan': Ex-Cricketer Rejects Ben Duckett 'Best All-Format' Claim – News18

Former India international Aakash Chopra has refuted Michael Vaughan’s claim that Ben Duckett is the ‘best’ all-format player. Chopra believes the England opener, despite being consistent in all three formats, hasn’t done enough across conditions or in ‘big matches’ to warrant that huge a tag. He also added that Duckett wasn’t even in such a conversation until Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma took retirements from Tests and T20Is.
Vaughan made the claim after Duckett won the Player of the Match for his scores of 62 and 149 in the first Test of the Anderson-Tendulkar trophy against India.
“If we see Ben Duckett’s performance, you will have to concede that he is good. He has performed very well over the last two years across the three formats," Chopra said in a video on his YouTube channel, as quoted by Sportskeeda. “The first thing is that until Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma were playing all 3 formats, he was not even in the conversation. They were like the Himalayas, and everything, no matter how big it might be, looks small in front of a mountain."
“Once they retired, you suddenly felt that all-format players have become very limited, and that he (Duckett) is the best among those who remained. However, there is a caveat. He hasn’t played Test cricket in Australia, played a total of three innings in South Africa, and his performance has been limited in India. So it’s not a straightforward done-and-dusted story," Chopra added.
The broadcaster put forward his choice, saying Australia’s Travis Head might be behind Duckett in terms of Test numbers, but he’s much more complete overall.
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“Travis Head is standing next to him. If you see Travis Head’s last two years’ numbers, you would say, ‘Wait, Michael Vaughan.’ He might be slightly behind in Tests, but when you see ODI cricket, and the big matches, you look at the 2023 WTC final and the 2023 ODI World Cup final, scoring runs in big matches is the biggest yardstick," Chopra said.
“This guy does that job. So if you do man-to-man marking, the numbers are quite similar, Ben Duckett is ahead in some areas and Travis Head is ahead in other areas, but, in my humble opinion, I think Travis Head is slightly ahead of him just because he has done very well in big moments," he added.
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