Former Pakistan all-rounder Abdul Razzaq believes current India all-rounder Hardik Pandya needs to work a lot to reach the level of world-class cricketers. He counts Pandya nowhere near the league of Kapil Dev.

"Pandya is a good player but he can be a much better all-rounder. It is all about hard work. When you don't give enough time to the game, it drifts away from you," he told PTI.

"He has to prepare better mentally as well as physically. As you have seen, he has been getting injured a lot of late (underwent back surgery last year). When you earn a lot of money, you tend to relax. For every player, it is the same. Mohammad Amir did not work hard enough and his performance dipped."

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Razzaq doesn't want Hardik's comparison with great all-rounders. "Kapil Dev and Imran Khan are the best all-rounders of all time. Hardik is nowhere near that league. Even I was an all-rounder but it doesn't mean that I would compare myself with Imran bhai.

"Kapil paaji and Imran bhai were in a different league," he said.

Razzaq also explained how his "baby bowler" comment on Jasprit Bumrah was not put out properly. He had to face flak for his words against India's finest pacer in recent times.

"I do not have anything personal against Bumrah. I was simply comparing him with the likes of Glenn McGrath, Wasim Akram, Curtly Ambrose, Shoaib Akhtar. It would have been much tougher to face them. My comments were misconstrued.

"He is heading towards becoming a world-class bowler. But in our times, the bowlers were of a much higher caliber. Not many can dispute that."

Razzaq also pointed out how cricket has changed lately and the quality of the game isn't the same.

"You don't feel the same pressure facing the current crop of pacers. Overall, there is a bad patch in world cricket. We are not producing world-class players the way we used to 10-15 years ago.

"You had Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan, Virender Sehwag, Sourav Ganguly in the same team. They would have walked into any team. Maybe, too much T20 cricket is responsible for this decline," he said.

India has remained unbeaten against Pakistan in World Cup and Razzaq feels the record will stay the same. "India will continue to maintain that record," he said.

Razzaq was himself part of three World Cup clashes (1999, 2003, 2011) between the rival teams.

"It is rare that India and Pakistan play each other in knock-out matches of ICC events. They mostly play in the league stage and India are favourites. Our players are not able to absorb the pressure that comes with this game.

"We used to win a lot against India in Sharjah, beat them in Canada twice. I remember the 1999 World Cup, people and media put pressure on the players before the game and we wilted. It has stayed like that, unfortunately.

"The pressure builds on the players though it is like any other match. The players are not confident about beating India in World Cup," he said.

(WITH PTI INPUTS)