Former Pakistan captain and chief selector has heaped praise for Indian legend Sunil Gavaskar. The Indian opening batsmen was the first man to score 10,000 runs in test cricket and further went on to make more glorious records. Sunil Gavaskar was also part of the victorious 1983 World cup winning squad.
Inzamam-ul-Haq is one of the best batsman ever produced by Pakistan. He has represented them in five World cups from 1992 to 2007. He also served as the chief selector for the Pakistan cricket team from 2016 to 2019. Over the years we’ve seen how vulnerable Inzamam has been as a batsman. He’s one of the few batsmen to score more than 20,000 runs for Pakistan across formats.
The Pakistan batsmen recently recalled how Gavaskar helped him counter the short ball during the 1992 tour of England. Prior to this tour, Inzamam had a great show in the 1992 World cup batting at various positions. His knock of 60 runs from just 37 balls helped Pakistan beat New Zealand in the semi-final of the 1992 World Cup.
Don’t think about bouncers – Sunil Gavaskar to Inzamam-ul-Haq
Inzamam spoke about how he faced problems during the 1992 tour of England as it was his first tour. Being just 22 years old at that time he had no idea about the way the pitch would behave which is why he consulted Sunil Gavaskar for the same.
“I went to England after the 1992 World Cup at the back of a tremendous performance in the mega event. It was my first-ever tour to England. I didn’t have any idea as to how should I play on those pitches. I was going through a bad patch as I was unable to play short-pitched deliveries.
“It was somewhere half of our season that I met him at a charity match in England. We both had gone to play that match. And I asked him ‘Sunil Bhai I’m facing problems to play short-pitched balls, what should I do’?,” Inzamam stated as quoted by Gulf News.
Sunil Gavaskar being himself just gave a piece of simple advice to Inzamam. He asked him to not worry about the Bouncers as the moment you start thinking about them you get trapped in those thoughts.
“As great are the ways of the great, he told me to do only one little thing, that is, don’t think about short-pitched balls or bouncers while batting because the moment you’ll think about them you’ll get trapped. He told me that when the bowler would deliver the ball you would automatically understand; so don’t get worried about that,” said Inzamam.
After listening to the advice of Sunil Gavaskar, Inzamam-ul-Haq applied the same while batting. He said he didn’t find any difficulty in facing short balls ever since he listened to Gavaskar’s advice from 1992 until his retirement in 2007.
“While in nets, I started practising the way he told me. I strengthened my mind, telling myself not to think about that [short-pitched balls]. The weakness was removed. And from 1992 till the time I retired, I never faced that problem again,” Inzamam concluded.