Imran Khan used to swear at me for not playing like Sunil Gavaskar: Ramiz Raja 

Former Pakistan batsman Ramiz Raja recently said that Imran Khan used to be in complete awe of Sunil Gavaskar, even when the latter batted against Pakistan.

In an exclusive live chat with Indranil Basu on Sportskeeda Cricket's Facebook page, Ramiz Raja mentioned how Imran Khan would tell him that Sunil Gavaskar was the best batsman in the world.

"When I first came across Sunil Gavaskar and he was like a God in the early '80s. And if Imran told you that he is the best batsman or somebody was the best batsman in the world, you looked at him, and I was in awe of what I saw, you know, even though Sunil Gavaskar was on his way out. I am talking about 86-87 series," said Ramiz Raja.

Raja continued with the story and revealed how effortless Sunil Gavaskar made playing Imran Khan look, because the opener used to calmly leave the deliveries bowled outside off.

"So I would stand at short leg and Imran Khan would come and try extremely hard to dislodge him (Sunil Gavaskar) during that India tour of ours and Sunil Gavaskar will be so calm in leaving the ball outside the off-stump and he would wait for the opportunities.

Whenever Imran bowled those banana in-swing deliveries on his pads, Sunil worked it away through short leg, through where I was and the ball would run and hit the fence," said Ramiz Raja.

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Imran Khan would get angry at me instead of Gavaskar: Raja

Ramiz Raja further mentioned that Imran Khan, instead of getting angry at Sunil Gavaskar, used to swear at him for not playing like the original Little Master.

"Instead of getting angry at Sunil Gavaskar, he would look at me because I was an opener as well and he would say, look how he is playing, and then it would be followed by couple of swear words," chuckled Ramiz Raja, reminiscing the old days.

The cricketer turned commentator also revealed that he had narrated the story to Sunil Gavaskar on multiple occasions.

"So I tell this story to Sunil and even now I say, you scored runs but I got the flak, not you...from Imran because he was in awe of Sunil as well," added Ramiz Raja.

Sunil Gavaskar holds the incredible feat of being the first cricketer to score over 10,000 runs in any format. The former Indian captain was arguably the best batsman of his generation, and he scored 10,122 runs in 125 Test matches with 34 hundreds at a stunning average of 51.12.