MUMBAI: After his whirlwind innings of 93 in the first Test against South Africa on a difficult track at Cape Town,
Hardik Pandya is being hailed as the next
Kapil Dev. However, during Legends Club function at the Cricket Club if India (CCI) on Thursday evening to celebrate Kapil's 59th birthday, his former pace bowling colleague
Karsan Ghavri quipped that Pandya was "nowhere near Kapil."
"He (Kapil) is being so modest to say, a few days ago I read in the newspaper that Hardik Pandya is a better allrounder than me. In my view Hardik Pandya is nowhere near Kapil Dev," Ghavari, who opened the bowling with Kapil in several Test matches, said.
"And even if he has to reach there, he has got a long-long way to go. It's a very difficult comparison, but (Hardik) he is nowhere near Kapil Dev right now," Ghavri quipped.
"Time will tell on how far he (Hardik) can reach close to Kapil's achievement or whatever Kapil has done and the time will tell you everything," the 66-year-old said.
Analysing the reasons for India's 72-run defeat in the first Test, Ghavri said: "We bowled extremely well in both the innings. Bowlers have done a beautiful job in the first Test match and it is only the batsman, who have let us down. It is not that we batted very badly, but we batted very poorly and so that was the result.
"And if we really need to improve from the second and the third Test onwards, every batsman has to take a lot of responsibility and plan out their innings and you need to have lot of runs on the board to fight, you got give something to your bowlers and if you don't do that, then the result will be different all-together," Ghavri explained.