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Cricket PlayersWorld Economic Forum 2020 - We used to quash 7-times bigger India: Imran Khan uses cricket analogy to talk about Pakistan’s growth potential
World Economic Forum 2020: Imran Khan said Pakistan was a big force in hockey and so many other sports too, while it has always been a rich country in terms of human and natural resources, but an entrenched corruption derailed the growth story over the last few decades.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday used a cricket analogy from his days as a player and captain to highlight his country’s resource richness and growth potential. Khan, who led Pakistan to the 1992 World Cup title, spoke about Pakistan’s dominance over India when he was an active cricketer. He also spoke about Pakistan’s triumphs over the arch rivals in field hockey.
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“In 60s, Pakistan was shining and it was like an Asian role model. I grew up with that hope but we let ourselves down because unfortunately democracy couldn’t get grounded in Pakistan. When democracy faltered, army came in...,” Khan said at a breakfast session on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum 2020 in Davos, Switzerland.
“When I was playing cricket, India was seven times of our size but we regularly quashed them. In hockey and so many other games also. We were great,” he said.
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Imran Khan said Pakistan was a big force in hockey and so many other sports too, while it has always been a rich country in terms of human and natural resources, but an entrenched corruption derailed the growth story over the last few decades.
Khan sought to project Pakistan’s economic growth potential saying the country has huge natural resources such as copper and gold. “I was told just the profit of only two blocks was two billion dollars. We have huge coal reserves. But we falter on productivity.”.
Khan said he learnt from his initial days in cricket that there is no prize for coming second in the professional world of sports. “There is no sympathy for losers,” he said.
Imran Khan was one of the leading all-rounders of his time and led his team to their only Test series win in India in 1986/87. He picked up 362 wickets in 88 Test matches and also scored 3807 runs.
He also picked up 182 wickets in 175 ODIs and also scored 3709 runs at an average of 33.41.
(With PTI inputs)
