Sarfaraz is no Imran Khan, says India’s Sanjay Manjrekar lauding PM's leadership

‘Sarfaraz Ahmed is no Imran Khan’ says former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar as he measured the Pakistan team captain against the country’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, who under his captaincy had led his team to become the global champions in the 1992 World Cup.

In an article written to News18 by Manjrekar, the much-heated comparison of Pakistan’s wicketkeeper batsman and the premier was set side by side with PM Khan being lauded for bringing about a winning culture from within the team during his time as Pakistan captain, something which Manjrekar states, can never be carried forward by the questionable Sarfaraz.

"When we played Pak in the late 80s through the 90s they had strong leadership. The world hasn’t seen a better captain than Imran Khan. He was self-confident, he'd learnt cricket the hard way. Under Imran, Pakistan had a great team culture, a winning culture", writes India’s former middle-order batsman.

“Imran Khan inspired his team, almost brainwashed them into believing they were better than everyone. It helped that there was great, natural ability already there. All it needed was the right channelling and cricket sophistication & Imran took care of that,” he adds further.

Moreover, coming to Sarfaraz's defense about Pakistan’s dismal defeat against arch rivals India, Manjrekar goes on: “Sarfaraz Ahmed is no Imran Khan, he is not going to take Pakistan to the next level, and to be fair blaming him for the loss at Old Trafford is silly. India was a much stronger side and there was not much Sarfaraz could do about it.”

While he terms India to be the stronger side of the two rivals under current circumstances, he stressed that captain Virat Kohli who is steering the team forward, has yet to match the same level of leadership of Imran Khan:

“Virat Kohli is no Imran yet. But it’s really a mix of the Virat and MS Dhoni culture that we are currently witnessing. Under Sourav Ganguly, India became better than it was in the 90s but the process of becoming champions and winning on the big stage was started by Dhoni, and Kohli is taking the legacy forward.”