NEW DELHI: From making his international debut under Mohammad Azharuddin in 1994 against New Zealand to playing his career’s last match in 2001 against Kenya under
Sourav Ganguly
’s captaincy, former India pacer
Venkatesh Prasad
bowled many match-winning spells for his team. Along with Javagal Srinath, Prasad formed a potent fast-bowling partnership.
Perhaps the most abiding memory for
Indian cricket
fans as far as Prasad is concerned is the infamous incident from the 1996 World Cup, when after being hit for a boundary and sledged by Pakistan’s Aamer Sohail, Prasad clean-bowled the Pakistan batsman off the very next ball and gave him a send-off.
In an exclusive interview with TimesofIndia.com, Prasad compared Sourav Ganguly and
Virat Kohli
as captains.
“I think Sourav and Virat are pretty much on similar lines, because Sourav also took up captaincy when there were a lot of negative things going around the team. That’s one. Second, Sourav had to really transform the team. I think it required huge leadership skills basically. And that’s what Sourav showed. He had an amazing leadership quality and he set the standard both as captain and a player. He set very high standards in both categories,” Prasad told Timesofin