"Look at India today, they are becoming a top team in the world" - Imran Khan
Former Pakistan captain Imran Khan believes India are becoming a better cricketing nation after improving their basic structure. However, the Pakistani Prime Minister believes his country has more talent than India.
Imran Khan is also patron-in-chief of the Pakistan Cricket Board and nominates its chairman. The 68-year-old praised India for its cricketing structure, but believes Pakistan are not too far away and will soon become world-beaters.
"Look at India today, they are becoming a top team in the world because they improved their structure although we have more talent. It takes time for a structure to work and polish talent, but I am confident our team will become world-beaters," Imran Khan said.
Pakistan has a provincial cricket structure, and Imran Khan is hopeful that it will produce good results in the next two to three years. In 2018, Pakistan went through a drastic overhaul of its domestic structure, with only six provincial teams playing first-class cricket as compared to around 16 regional teams in the past. Former ICC President Ehsan Mani is currently the President of the Pakistan Cricket Board.
"Not able to spare time for cricket" - Imran Khan
Imran Khan has revealed that although he hasn't been able to catch much cricket of late, he is confident Pakistan will improve over the next few years.
"Honestly speaking I am not able to spare time for cricket and have not even watched the matches but now that our basic cricket structure has been changed things will improve gradually," added Imran Khan.
Under Imran Khan, Pakistan won their only 50-over World Cup in 1992. After retiring from the game, Imran joined politics and became the Prime Minister of the nation in 2018.
Given the growing tensions between India and Pakistan, the two teams haven't played each other in a bilateral series for over eight years now. However, the two teams still face off in ICC events. Pakistan last toured India in 2012-13, where they won the ODI series 2-1 and drew the T20I series 1-1.