Imran scolded his teammates only to make them better cricketers, Sunil Gavaskar

ISLAMABAD (APP): Former Indian Captain Sunil Gavaskar believes that Pakistan’s World Cup-winning captain Imran Khan if ever scolded his teammates in a cricket match during his playing days that was only with the intent to make them better cricketers.

“Whenever Imran scolded his teammates, he did that out of love as he wanted them to do well,” Gavaskar said in an interview with Pakistan’s cricketer turned commentator Ramiz Raja on his YouTube channels ‘Ramiz Speaks’.

“[It happens in cricket that as a captain] when you scold your teammates, you do that intentionally as you want them to improve their game,” he said.

He recalled that the then Pakistan team, led by Imran Khan was a very balanced outfit. “That was a champion side. That team had a strong batting lineup. From openers to their number seven to eight [batsman] that was a superb batting lineup.”

The former Indian skipper was also full of praise for strong Pakistan bowling attack of his time. He said that Pakistan bowling attack of that time was also outstanding as it was comprised of fast bowlers such as Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Sarfraz Nawaz and Sikandar Bakht.

“You [Pakistan] had a very balanced bowling attack and were not relying only on the pace. In spin [department] you had Abdul Qadir and Iqbal Qasim.”

“Your performance both in Pakistan and overseas, including West Indies and Australia was very good. The then Pakistan team was like today’s Indian team,” he remarked. He also expressed the grief that former leg-spin wizard Abdul Qadir was not present among us today saying. “It is really said that he [Abdul Qadir] left us so early.” About the future of Test cricket he was of the view that people would keep on liking it till the time great players would keep on taking interest in that.

“The good thing is that the [incumbent] Indian captain Virat Kohli likes Test cricket and has given enough importance to it. [Similarly] Australia’s Steve Smith also gives importance to Test cricket. So till the time today’s heroes will keep on talking about Test cricket, it will survive,” he said.

He said Test cricket was not much exciting as it had more sessions and batsmen normally did not score enough runs in those sessions to entertain the fans. “Sometimes [in a Test] only around 200 or 250 runs are scored during the entire day. But when you look at T20 cricket, you see a team scoring around 200 or 200 plus runs in a 20-over innings. Hence that excitement [of scoring quickly] is probably missing in Test cricket.

“But the real testing of your skills and temperament only takes place in Test cricket. If at the end of a cricketer’s career some analysis will be done, that will only be done on the basis of Test cricket as how has he performed in that [format].

“If we talk today about [the greatness] of Steve Smith, Virat Kohli, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Starc and Dale Steyn, we only talk because they’ve performed in Test cricket. “If you see at T20 and 50 over cricket [history], how many matches do you still remember? But interesting Test matches remain in your mind forever.”

About the idea of bilateral series between Pakistan and India at a neutral venue, he said that for the time being it was very difficult. He said that the two teams could probably face each other in World Cup or some other International Cricket Council (ICC) events but not in a bilateral series.