Lakshmipathy Balaji was more popular than Imran Khan during India's tour of Pakistan in 2003-04: Ashish Nehra

New Delhi, April 19: Team India's tour of Pakistan in 2003-04 for Test and ODI series under the leadership of Sourav Ganguly was one of the highlights of that decade.

Team India won the Test, as well as the ODI series, and impressed everyone with their performance. Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar made valuable contributions with the bat. While young guns Irfan Pathan and Lakshmipathy Balaji bagged most of the limelight in the bowling unit apart from Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra.

Reflecting upon Team India's historic tour, former India pacer Nehra hailed Balaji as the most popular cricketer from that tour. Right-arm pacer, Balaji, who impressed everyone with his pace bowling, played a crucial role in the team's success on that tour and Nehra believes the Tamil Nadu bowler gained more popularity than former Pakistan captain Imran Khan at that time.

Nehra on Star Sports' show, Cricket Connected said, "In the dressing room, Irfan can give you more stories, the only thing I remember is Laxmipathy Balaji on that particular tour. Maybe that time he was more popular than Imran Khan."

A young Balaji had also hit Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Sami for sixes during the ODI series of the series.

"Those six weeks he was hitting sixes left right and centre there was no doubt about it. Virender Sehwag triple hundred, Rahul Dravid double hundred, Irfan Pathan performance, all that is there but to me, off the field, Pakistan, the nation as a whole and Laximathy Balaji in the dressing room," said Nehra.

"I still remember Javed Miandad inviting all of us to his house and that food in his house was amazing, I still remember it," Nehra added.

Balaji featured in eight tests, 30 ODIs and five T20Is for India and picked up 27, 34 and 10 wickets across the formats respectively before quitting in 2017.