Former Pakistan fast bowler Waqar Younis surprised fans by picking Indian greats over most of their Pakistani counterparts while building a combined India-Pakistan dream team. The 54-year-old selected only one Pakistani player in the rapid-fire segment, picking Indian stars across several generations.
Waqar had an illustrious career for Pakistan in international cricket. The right-arm fast bowler took 373 wickets in 87 Test matches and 416 wickets in 262 ODIs. He also featured in several high-profile encounters against India during his career, taking 45 wickets in 30 international matches against his archrivals.
Waqar Younis Picks Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli Over Pakistan Greats
Speaking on the Shubhankar Mishra podcast, Waqar Younis chose Sachin Tendulkar over Inzamam-ul-Haq, Virat Kohli over Babar Azam and MS Dhoni over Javed Miandad. He also selected Rahul Dravid ahead of Younis Khan and VVS Laxman over Misbah-ul-Haq.
The former Pakistan captain continued to favour Indian players in other matchups, picking Rohit Sharma over Fakhar Zaman, Jasprit Bumrah over Shaheen Afridi and Mohammed Shami over Mohammed Amir. His only Pakistani selection was Saeed Anwar, whom he preferred over Virender Sehwag.
Waqar was also asked to choose between 15-year-old Indian batting prospect Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Pakistan’s 20-year-old Sameer Minhas. However, he declined to pick either youngster, stating that he had not watched enough of them to make a fair comparison.
Waqar Younis Says Jasprit Bumrah Has More to Prove in Tests
Waqar Younis distinguished between Jasprit Bumrah’s white-ball and red-ball performances. He described the Indian pacer as a standout bowler in limited-overs cricket but said he still needed to establish himself further in Tests.
“There’s no modern-day bowler of the same calibre as Bumrah with the white ball. Leave out Test cricket. He still has a lot to prove in Tests; he hasn’t played as much. There are plenty of others, like Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood. You can’t ignore some of the English bowlers either. But when you talk about T20 and one-day cricket, I feel that in terms of impact, Bumrah always delivers in crunch scenarios. And that’s what matters,” Waqar said on the Shubhankar Mishra podcast.
Bumrah has taken 234 wickets in 52 Tests at an average of 19.7 and a strike rate of 42.8. He has also claimed 51 wickets in 11 Tests in England.
Jasprit Bumrah’s Test Records Contrast With Waqar’s Assessment
Jasprit Bumrah reached several major milestones early in his Test career. In 2018, he became the fastest Indian fast bowler to take 50 Test wickets, achieving the feat in his 11th match. He then reached 100 wickets in just 24 Tests.
In 2019, Bumrah became only the third Indian bowler to take a hat-trick in Test cricket. He later earned the ICC Men’s Test Cricketer of the Year award for 2024, before finishing the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy with 32 wickets in five Tests.
Meanwhile, Shreyas Iyer’s team took an unassailable 3-0 lead in the five-match T20I series. The tour also includes two ODIs and a five-Test series. Pakistan also secured a place in the final of their home ODI tri-series after three consecutive wins and are set to face Sri Lanka on Saturday.
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