Zaheer Khan: A genuine fast bowler from the land of spinners

Zaheer Khan was one of India’s premier match-winners with the ball

It was the beginning of the first festive season of the new millennium in India and with it, a new term was being added to Indian cricket’s vocabulary - ‘Left Arm Fast’. Now, fast is a word that we Indian fans are particularly obsessed with mainly because of the fact that over the years we as a country have failed to produce genuine fast bowlers. We often harp at how our neighbours from across the border produce fast bowlers at the drop of a hat.

Reinstating this sense of pride of having a genuine fast bowler, the then Indian captain Sourav Ganguly speaking in a post-match ceremony had said that now India also had a bowler who could bounce the opposition out.

The stage was the 2000 ICC Knockout Trophy and the bowler that Ganguly was talking about was none other than Zaheer Khan who had burst onto the cricketing scene with impressive performances in the tournament. In his initial days, he was under the guidance of another Indian pacer Javagal Srinath and slowly but surely, with Srinath’s retirement, he became the spearhead of the attack.

He was India’s leading wicket-taker in the 2003 World Cup and was also the highest wicket-taker in the 2011 World Cup which India won.

Zaheer – Tendulkar of the Indian bowling attack

With his body not supporting him, the word fast slowly gave way to medium fast as Zaheer became older and wiser, but he added many other tricks to his repertoire to fox out the batsmen. He retired as the country’s fourth most successful bowler in Tests in terms of number of wickets taken, but his contribution to Indian cricket is much beyond these numbers.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, under whom Zaheer played 31 Tests had once said: “For me, Zaheer is the Sachin Tendulkar of the Indian bowling attack”. Coming from Dhoni, it’s a huge compliment and Zaheer indeed inspired a generation of fast bowlers in the country. The current crop of seamers have often acknowledged Zaheer’s role in shaping up their careers.

While he was not a man known for his batting, some of his performances with the bat are worth mentioning like the four sixes that he hit off Zimbabwe's Henry Olonga in one over or the straight six that he hit off Australia’s Brett Lee after a verbal duel with the Australian.

“Engineers to bahut saare hain, tu bowler hi ban na”

Zak, as he is fondly called could well have ended up spending his life in one of those cubicles in India’s silicon valley, Bengaluru, had it not been for his father’s wise words. “Engineers to bahut saare hain tu bowler hi ban na” (There are a lot of engineers out there. You become a bowler). And the rest, as they say, is history.

Zaheer gave up engineering to pursue cricket and left the game as one of India’s all-time great bowlers. In a sense, he always chose the path less traversed; in a world full of right-handers, he was a southpaw and in a country full of batsmen & spinners, he was a fast bowler.

Time to applaud him on his career

As Zaheer wasn’t part of the Indian team for the last 20 months owing to injury, some part of me knew that we won’t see him donning the Indian cap again. But as his long-time teammate VVS Laxman aptly said, the sheer finality of the retirement hit us hard.

Experts have called upon him to take up the role of mentoring the young Indian bowlers which, by the way, he was doing during his playing days as well. As a well-wisher of Indian cricket, I sincerely hope that he does contribute to Indian cricket in some form and he has given indications which suggests that he will indeed be back. But for now, it is time to stand up and applaud the man who carried on Srinath’s legacy and reaffirmed the belief that this land of spinners can also produce genuine fast bowlers.