Would be great to see Virat Kohli, Babar Azam open in IPL: Akhtar predicts price tag of Pakistan captain

The first edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) remains the only season where Pakistani players took part in the cash-rich league. Since then, their participation has remained a distant dream due to the political tension between India and Pakistan since 2008.

Nonetheless, it doesn't stop the experts and former cricketers from making predictions about the price tag of the current lot of Pakistan players had they been a part of the IPL in present times. In this regard, the Rawalpindi Express Shoaib Akhtar made a bold claim by predicting Pakistan captain Babar Azam's price tag in the IPL.

In a chat with Sportskeeda, Akhtar said, "It would be great to see Babar Azam and Virat Kohli opening the innings together in the IPL one day. What an exciting moment that would be. In the auction, Babar would go for 15-20 crore INR and could be the most expensive Pakistan player."

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Along with Babar, Pakistan have quite a few talented cricketers such as Shaheen Afridi, Md Rizwan, Shadab Khan, etc. who can gain big-fat cheques in the IPL. However, this remains a distant dream at present seeing the political relationship between the two neighbouring countries.

At present, the IPL 2022 edition has started on an emphatic note and has given fans plenty to cheer for after the five completedgames so far. On the other hand, Babar-led Pakistan are involved in a three-match ODI series versus Australia at home. They lost the series opener, on Tuesday (March 29), by 88 runs.