Lashing out at Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for its disasterous player management, former pacer Shoaib Akhtar has said that PCB wasted talent like Imran Nazir who had more talent than Virender Sehwag of India.
“I don’t think Imran Nazir had the brain that Sehwag had. I don’t think Sehwag had the talent that Imran Nazir had. Nazir had more talent, there is no comparison with regards to talent. We tried to contain him a little,” Akhtar was quoted as saying on a TV show by Cricket Pakistan.
Akhtar blamed PCB for not using Nazir the right way and for not grooming him as he could have been a better player than Sehwag.
“When he hit a brutal hundred against India in a match, I asked them to play Imran Nazir consistently but they didn’t listen,” he said.
“It is unfortunate that we do not know how to take care of our brands. We could have had a player better than Virender Sehwag in Imran Nazir. He had all the shots while also being a good fielder. We could have utilised him brilliantly but we just couldn’t,” Akhtar went on to add.
Imran Nazir in 8 Tests, 79 ODIs and 25 T20Is for Pakistan. In the three formats, he scored 427, 1895 and 500 runs respectively.