Sunil Gavaskar's would have scored 16,000 in modern cricket: Inzamam-ul-Haq

Guwahati: Former Pakistan skipper Inzamam-ul-Haq lavished huge praise on Legendary Indian batsman Sunil Gavaskar, who was the first Indian cricketer score 10,000 runs in test cricket. The 'little master' (as he was popularly known) had become the first cricketer to score 10,000 Test runs in a Test match against Pakistan at Ahmedabad.

Inzamam-ul-Haq said that the worth of Sunil Gavaskar's 10,122 test runs of that era is equal to 15,000 runs 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," he stated.

Inzy opined that Gavaskar's tally of runs would have been much more if he had played in the modern era as the pitches at that time were way more difficult to bat on than the ones in the current era. He also pointed out that there are many greats of the game, but none ever managed to breach the 10,000 run-mark.

"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 in a video posted on his YouTube channel.

The former Pakistan captain, who himself scored 8,830 runs in 120 Tests and 11,739 runs in 378 ODIs, backed his statement by saying that wickets during Gavaskar's time were not easy like the current time.

"If [as a batsman] your form is good you can even score 1,000 to 1,500 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." said the former Pakistan cricketer. "But in the past wickets were not so easy to bat on, especially when you were playing outside the sub-continent," he added.

In his 16 years long career, Gavaskar retired with  10,122 runs in 125 Test matches for India, slamming 34 hundreds and 45 half-centuries. He breached the 10,000-run mark in his final Test series, which took place in India against Pakistan. 

It is to be mentioned that currently, Sachin Tendulkar holds the record for the most number of runs in the longest format of the game (15,921 in 200 Tests). Among Indian cricketers, Rahul Dravid is the only other batsman to have scored more than 10,000 runs in Tests.

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