Hindu squats will elevate your heatrate to the point of a full-on sprint, but usually the longest you can keep doing them is for about 15 minutes (continuously). At that point, you probably will have done around 1600 - 2000 Hindu squats, at which your legs will probably collapse. You yourself will probably collapse because you'll be so short of breath. And Hindu squats can replace long period running, I believe. I read an article in Muscle Media, in which they even told about how new training doesn't even require long running for developing endurance. The Japanese speedskaters didn't do any running for endurance. They did a form of hardcore sprinting, in such a way that it taxed the hell out of the body. It was a program the magazine called Guerilla Cardio.
However, running in terms of moving on the legs, you're right, nothing replaces it, as sprints are a form of running. But you do not need to run long distances to develop good endurance (not that you said you had to either, but just in case that is what you thought).
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