Islamabad, June 11 (ANI): Legendary Pakistan leg-spinner Abdul Qadir has said he considers himself lucky to have played in the golden era of cricket.

We were quite fortunate that we had played in the golden era of cricket as at that time great players like Imran Khan, Ian Bottam, Richard Hadlee, Viv Richard, Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Malcom Marshall and many more were applying their trade and there was a tough competition at that time, The Nation quoted Qadir, as saying.

Qadir, who has played more than 70 Tests and over 100 ODIs with 240 plus wickets in Tests and over 110 wickets in ODIs, said: There is no compression between our days and current players. During our playing days, a great player and skipper like Imran Khan was getting Rs 7000 for playing a Test, but now-a-days Younus Khan is earning Rs 8 million from Tests.

During our time we played for the pride of the country, despite getting minimum money as the country was our priority. It is quite unbelievable that current players cry they are not paid much. The players are now earning in millions and they could earn more and more by playing in county cricket, IPL, BPL or appearing in ads and they are still being paid hefty amounts by their respective boards so it makes no sense when they cry they were under paid, he added.

These days' boys are very lucky, as they have to play against ordinary players; bowlers are especially very lucky as there are no great hitters of our days. I must suggest every player must take an oath that he would only play for country and not for the money, just like we did, he further said.

I must give credit to PCB Chairman Zaka Ashraf, who in a very short span of time, had introduced revolutionary steps and this is sheer love and passion for cricket that he immediately started to work on domestic structure. Intikhab Alam, Sarfraz Nawaz, Zaheer Abbas and Javed Miandad would certainly produce results and emphasizing on club cricket would benefit the national team a lot, he concluded. (ANI)