Imran backed players with right attitude and work ethics, and obviously core skills. Besides, even in 1980s, early 90s, he was trying to build specialist teams for longer & shorter format.
I think, for Test squad definitely he would have backed Taufique Umar, Asim Kamal & May be Yasir Hameed among batsmen while Mo Sami, Danish Kaneria & Arshad among bowlers, may be Wahab & Gul as well (not to mention Asif & Amir - they would have forced their way, but Imran would have kept them focused or completely broken). And, I am sure A Razzak & Kamran Akmal would have been greats of the game. One player I am sure missed an Imran Khan was Sohail Khan - guy comes from a small town which didn’t help his cause but at that height & pace (when he first came), guy needed someone like Imran to back him, Sohail could bat a bit as well. The players that could have a tough time under Khan are the Mavericks - players with too big attitude, less work ethics - Afridi, Akhtar, Umar Akmal .... and players who should thank their luck for not having Imran around are like Hafeez, Malik..... For the LO cricket, I am sure Sohail Tanvir, Anwar Ali, Yasir Hameed, Butt .... should have a better & longer career.
His philosophy was very simple - hard work, commitment & skilled in at least one trait. One can put a filter & plot the names in different quarters.
I don’t think, coping up with “modern” tactics would have been any issue for Imran. He was the first guy (not Rantunga as per popular belief) who first brought unconventional batting strategy in ODI - opened with Yousuf as pinch hitter, often changed batting order to promote Wasim, Qadir, Sohail Fazal, Amir Malik .... he tried to groom a sort of “ODI specialists” in an era when often team used to play same XI for both Test & ODI. Players like Amir Malik, Manzoor Elahi, Navid Anjum, Shahid Saeed, Akram Raja, Sazzad Akbar, Iqbal Sikandar .... even Aquib Javed .... we’re sort of ODI specialists.
Kids here recall his 1992 batting without understanding the context - PAK went with one senior player in Javed and another half senior Malik was in horrible form .... then they lost Anwar at last moment. Imran first tried with Inzi at three and it resulted in a 10 wicket loss to WI, then 74 all-out to Poms.... that was the first WC played under longer with white balls and those white balls were moving/seeming crazy in first hour - it was his greatness that he decided to take the challenge and bat at three, which gave PAK an excellent balance of having a solid middle order that cashed on against old ball - Javed, Malik, Inzi, Izaj. At the end, they won five back to back games to win the trophy with Imran at 3 - not sure why people are complaining.
Playing his last game in March 1992, his career ODI SR was 73, despite that slow batting in 1992 WC, with an average of 33 - people have absolutely no clue of what sort of batting stats that is for that era, particularly from a batsman whose first 100 game’s bowling stats was average of 21 & economy of 3.5. For a clue, at similar time Allen Border had stats like 31/71, GR Vishi 20/53, Dulip Vengsarkar 35/68, David Gower 31/74, Gooch 37/62 ........ it was one my biggest surprise that this ex fast bowler, could have negotiated that white new ball as such from No. 3, yes he was lucky that Gooch dropped him. The way Pringle & other English pacers bowled for first 20 overs, in that 1992 final ..... many “modern great” batting lineup could have made it a T20 game....
that’s got to be one of the greatest quotes I ever heard.
