Virat Kohli or Sachin Tendulkar – who rated Imran Khan higher? Indian diplomat Ajay Bisaria reveals

Ajay Bisaria served as Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan from 2017 to 2019. He then served as Indian High Commissioner to Canada from 2020 to 2022.

New Delhi: Former Pakistan captain and Prime Minister Imran Khan had once rated Virat Kohli more highly than the legendary Sachin Tendulkar, recalled Ajay Bisaria, former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan. Bisaria, who served in Pakistan from 2017 to 2019, was expelled by the government of Pakistan following the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir. Imran is currently in prison after being sentenced to more than ten years in prison for corruption.

Pakistan, one of the country’s cricket stalwarts, won the World Cup in 1992 under the captaincy of Imran. It was at the same time that Sachin also flourished in international cricket. By the end of his career, Sachin left cricket with nearly 35,000 international runs and was also the only cricketer in the world to score 100 centuries.

According to Bisaria, Imran rated Kohli highly for his ability to turn losing matches into winning ones. “At one of the Iftar parties he hosted, Imran Khan told me that he thought Virat Kohli was clearly the best cricketer in the world and that he would rate him much higher than Tendulkar,” Bisaria told the Indian Express.

“Because, he said, Kohli turned losing games into winning games and that is not what happened often in Tendulkar’s case. Even Dhoni has a huge fan following in Pakistan,” he added. Bisaria also explained why Kohli has a huge fan following in Pakistan, much like the case of Imran in India.

“Because cricket is a subcontinental religion and everything else falls before it,” he said.