Zak signs off

Zaheer Khan with his typical celebration

Zaheer Khan to me will always be a symbol of constant learning and unlearning. That is my greatest take away from an in-depth analysis of his 15-year long career.

He burst into the scene at the start of the millennium as a tearaway seamer who would look to run through the oppositions with his brute pace and deadly yorkers.

With passage of time, following the typical script of every Indian pacer, he lost a lot of his pace and edge. The Pathans and the Balajis came to the fore, and Khan started losing his presence, and eventually lost his spot in the side.

Worcestershire and redux

He went to England around the year 2006 and had a rather fruitful county stint at Worcestershire. He made it back to the Indian team and he has never looked back since.

The wickets started coming, in both the formats. The southpaw managed to become the mainstay of the Indian attack both in home as well as in overseas conditions. Who can forget that fiery spell at Trentbridge in 2007, where he came out with a lot of focused aggression, in the aftermath of the infamous jelly-bean incident, and won India a famous test match which later materialised into a rare series win away from home.

Khan had also along the way mastered the art of reverse swing. In docile Indian conditions, the only sure shot way of picking up wickets on a regular basis is to be able to bowl well with the old SG ball, and bowl well he did.

Zaheer in World Cups

Perhaps the greatest testimony to his continuous learning and evolution, is the stark difference between the two opening spells he bowled in the World Cup Finals that he was part of.

A wayward and erratic first over bowled against Australia in the 2003 World Cup, which arguably lost India the match, versus the probing 5-over spell in the 2011 edition against Sri Lanka, in batting friendly conditions, where he completely stifled and stymied the openers, Tharanga and Dilshan. Khan ended his first spell with figures of 6-1 after 5 overs. Although he was taken for some runs in his last spell, the kind of start that he provided to the final, meant that the Lankans fell a good 20-30 runs short which proved to be the difference in the end. It was probably the battering he received at Jo'burg that eventually helped India lift the cup at Wankhede 8 years later!

He learnt his greatest lesson in life from probably the greatest debacle of his career, and that epitomises Zaheer Khan for me.

Thank you Zak, for the 610 Wickets, for the 21 World Cup Wickets, and for all the memories.