That's the first time I have read or heard in 20+ years & I read, hear lot - so, I keep it as your personal comment, leave it there as the bold part for everyone to watch. 2nd part of your post is more childish - to cover your post regarding Inzi vs MoHa, bringing Tendulkar here - so I leave it there as well. I am keeping that in italic so that other posters don't overlook the shift of goal post
. Also, again you conveniently missed the point - one batted at 5 & other as opener - as middle order, in his first 78 innings, you can check how many hundreds ST had, or in 90s, till the ODI became a glory feast for batsmen, how many centuries ST had as opener outside Asia & against whom (do a filter to take out Kenya, it'll be easier).
Myself don't like Khan for his political statements regarding Bangladesh or Bangladeshi people, but, that has nothing to do Imran Khan the cricketer. Here, I find many immature people trying to defame Cricketer Imran Khan for his political career, which sometimes I try to expose. Your last comment is exactly one of such examples - which I'll explain, the way I understood.
Khan NEVER, & I repeat NEVER told, anywhere that Inzi was better than ST - what he said was that Inzi had as much or better talent than any one including ST (Not on ST, he mentioned that on Viv as well) & then explained his reason as well - "I haven't seen anyone with so much time to play fast bowlers". I don't see any problem in that, because I know the context & what made Imran that comment.
PAK cricket has no system - players almost picked in their teens from street & they learn the trait from hard way. It's easier for bowlers, because bowling is more instinct, personal, self taught. And, the degree of perfection is less - one bad ball at max costs you 6 runs - bowler can comeback very next ball. Batting is more process oriented, methodical, organized, strategic, mental & disciplined - it's the most perfectionist jobs in any sports - may be only snooker or golf comes close to it - in a 5 day match, a batsman has 2 chances to make one mistake - in snooker it may cost him 1 frame & in golf one hole.
Now, Khan brought Inzi from domestics in his early 20s, purely from his batting against WWs at nets. IT WAS ONLY KHAN, BECAUSE Inzi played at least 5 domestic seasons before his 1st match for PAK & he was picked only after Imran saw him. Imran saw the young-man batting at nets & realized what sort of capability he had. Based on that, he was absolutely OK on his comments & he actually played Inzi as opener in his early days, because he could see the potential - tried him to make permanent No. 3.
What happened that, unlike almost every PAK batting greats, Inzi didn't go to Counties - therefore his game wasn't complete, he couldn't polish his skills, fix his glitches, neither had the support from PAK's domestic resources to work on his short comings; which resulted his struggling against professional sides. Once set, I can tell you there are not many in history more dominant than Inzi, but better teams often got him out before he was set - this was his improvement area, which Basit Ali's will relate to lack of talent (same goes for Babar - 10s & 20s & 30s - he crossed that few times recently, scored 3 hundreds & carried bat for 90*). Imran left cricket in March 1992 & for next 15-20 years, he didn't even watch cricket much - so, what he missed is the lack of development in Inzi's game, the struggle of Inzi against professional sides. What remained in his mind was the unreal capability of the man, but unpolished.
Inzamam is the only PAK cricketer completely coming from domestic system, which never allowed him to fulfill his potential as he had massive limitation in other aspects of a cricketer. County cricket is not about a cricket system only - it's a life style of a pro sportsman, which was missing from Inzi's cricketer life. He was anything but a modern sportsman - he had been run out almost 50 times - that's one in every 10 International Innings!!!; he missed several hundreds just from striving for breather after crossing 70. He missed at least 1K personal runs just for his poor running of own shot; he played his entire career with over weight, carrying some sort of injury ....... after all that, the numbers that man has in his credit is almost unreal. Apart from Inzi, any other cricketer, I can tell you that he would have ended career by 2003.
I give a classic example - Inzi has comfortably 2/3 years hidden in his official age - so, by the time Bob came in 2003, Inzi was at least 35/36 - an age when most players start to think of retirement from Internationals. For the first time in his life, Inzi got a pro coach to work on his game - from the real age of 35 to 38 (between 2004 to 2006), just check what he did with bat under Woolmer. Inzi's biggest loss was that he had almost 2 decades gap in age with Khan - otherwise, Imran would have sent him to Counties in 1993 for 3/4 years (or kicked his back side to fix it) & you would have seen what sort of player he was. I just keep silent when people talk about PAK's best batsmen & think that Javed or even YK is better than Huq
PS: Some Indian posters need not to be reactive here - I am discussing different topic.
