Kapil, Pandya cannot be compared: Azhar

Hardik Pandya is often considered as India’s best all-rounder in the current setup. He is many a times compared to legendary Kapil Dev when it comes to contribution for the team with both bat and ball.

New Delhi: Hardik Pandya is often considered as India’s best all-rounder in the current setup. He is many a times compared to legendary Kapil Dev when it comes to contribution for the team with both bat and ball.

But, former India skipper Mohammad Azharuddin has rubbished comparison between the two stating that “there can’t be another Kapil Dev”.

"It's not advisable to do that," Azhar said when asked about the two all-rounders being compared to one another.

"It's not good. Because there can never be another Kapil Dev. It's very difficult to get another Kapil Dev as amount of hard workload he took over a period of time, he used to bowl 20-25 overs in a day. Not many people can do it now," the 54-year-old said about his former teammate.

Since making his debut against Australia in Adelaide in 2015, the Mumbai Indians star has established himself as a key player across all formats of the game and earning praises from skipper Virat Kohli for his contribution to the team.

But, the 25-year-old was under heavy criticism after having failed to perform in the recently concluded Test series. The only highlight from the three-match series was his fighting 93-run knock in the first Test match.

Pandya has also made some silly mistakes, like the inexplicable run out in the second innings of the second Test when India were reeling at 65/5 chasing a target of 287.

This incident also made Kapil Dev publicly state "If Pandya keeps on making silly mistakes like these then he doesn't deserve to be compared with me".

Another former Indian cricketer Sandeep Patil also mentioned that comparing the two was not ideal because Pandya is still in early stages of his cricketing career. "I have played a lot of cricket with Kapil, really there is no comparison. Kapil played 15 years for India with terrific performance and Pandya is only in his fifth Test match... There is a long way to go," Patil said.