Zaheer Khan: climbing to loftier heights
Zaheer Khan
of Baroda is touted as one of India's pace prospects for the
forthcoming international season. The Ahmednagar born lad, who will
complete 22 in October, has been busy playing league cricket in Madras
for Globe Trotters which represents the MRF. Zaheer has been with the
MRF Pace Foundation for the last three years and it has moulded him
into a fighting fit product ready to pass through the turnstiles into
international cricket.
Unlike so many other precocious kids who take to the game almost as
toddlers, Zaheer was a relatively late convert to the game. His
academic progress took precedence and while he'd played some tennis
ball cricket over the years, it wasn't until he completed his 12th
standard that he took to playing the game in Bombay with a cricket
ball. That was in April 1996 and Zaheer has made giant strides in the
ensuing four years.
He has already flirted with national selection, being named in the
probables for the Asia
Cup in Dhaka earlier this year, and his harvest of 35 wickets at
29.25 in the Ranji Trophy last season, placed him third after Ashish Zaidi
and Sadagopan Mahesh
among fast medium bowlers. It wasn't all a bed of roses though for he
struggled initially to infiltrate into the strong Mumbai new ball line
up. After getting only sporadic opportunities in the Ranji Trophy, he
sensibly decided to shift allegiance to Baroda in the 1999-2000 season
and the move struck pay dirt.
Along with Thiru Kumaran,
Zaheer was chosen to train at the Australian Cricket Academy for a
short stint early last season and the exposure has helped to toughen
him up both physically and mentally. "We represented the ACA and
toured New Zealand, playing a few matches with the New Zealand Cricket
Academy. The basic idea was to adapt to adverse conditions and perform
under difficult situations. The wicket was helpful for seamers and the
ball was moving throughout the day. But it was very windy and chilly",
said Zaheer recounting that experience. One of the original 24 to be
selected in the first batch of the National Cricket Academy
inaugurated on 1 May, he spent the first three weeks in Bangalore
before being loaned to the MRF Pace Foundation.
Zaheer has the ability to generate a good burst of
pace to unsettle his adversaries and when it was put to him that India
had for the most part produced medium pacers rather than the genuine
quick, he replied with disarming confidence that "in any conditions
you need to have speed, only then you can succeed. I believe I can
bowl quick." He rated the quickest wickets in India to be at Mohali
("the ball moves all day and seams a bit") and the Chinnaswamy stadium
in Bangalore, adding with a glint that "the IPCL ground at Baroda
where I get to bowl a lot is also good."
No left armer has opened the bowling for India (apart from Ashish Nehra
who got just a solitary game) since the days of Karsan Ghavri
some twenty years ago and Zaheer agrees that it should be an
advantage. "Its a natural thing. Most right handed batsman are
tentative against left arm bowlers." Pleasantly but firmly Zaheer
asserts "I'm prepared for my battle ahead. I just know I'm going to
give more than 100%" and at the end of the encounter you are more than
convinced that he has taken the tide that is leading him on to greater
challenges in the foreseeable future.
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