Inzamam Heaps Praise on Gavaskar, Says No Batsman Thought of Scoring 10,000 Runs Before Him

Former Pakistan skipper Inzamam-ul-Haq has gone on to praise ex-India opener Sunil Gavaskar, and said that no one from the past or current generation come close to the player he was.

He added that there are many greats of the game, but none ever thought of breaching the 10,000 run-mark.

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“There were several great players in his era as well as before that. There were batsmen like Javed Miandad, Viv Richards, Garry Sobers, and Don Bradman but none of them thought to reach the figure. Even in today’s cricket when there is too much Test cricket, there are very few players who’ve achieved that feat,” Inzamam said on his YouTube channel.

Back in 1987, Gavaskar against Pakistan, had reached the milestone. Inzamam felt his tally of runs would have been much more had he played in the modern era.

“If you ask me, I’ll say Sunil’s 10,000 runs of that era are equal to today’s 15,000 to 16,000 runs. These can be more than that but not less in anyway,” added Inzamam.

He reiterated his point by saying that the pitches earlier were conducive for batting, like they are today.

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“If [as a batsman] your form is good you can even score 1000 to 1500 runs in a season. But when Sunil was batting, the situation was not like that. Today purely batting wickets are prepared so that you can continue scoring runs. The ICC also wants to see batsmen doing that so that spectators are entertained.

“But in the past wickets were not so easy to bat on, especially when you were playing outside the sub-continent,” Inzamam said.

Gavaskar soon retired after playing one more Test against Pakistan in 1987. He finished with 10122 runs in 125 Tests at an average of 51.12.