Zaheer Khan: Can he redeem himself?

India’s most iconic swing bowler after Kapil Dev, Zaheer Khan has been part of many historic victories for India. But for the past couple of years, especially after the disasterous overseas tours of England and Australia, he has been in the sidelines for most of the times, mainly due to injury and partially due to lack of form.


The relationship between Zaheer Khan and Injuries is quite an old one. Just when his career was blooming in the early 2000’s, injuries hampered him and he eventually lost his place to the likes of Balaji and Irfan Pathan.

But somehow, he recovered well from the injury-cum-form dip, and from his return series against South Africa in 2007, he has been the spearhead of the Indian bowling.

Though his pace was no-where near to what it was before, he had much more lethal weapons up his sleeve. He re-introduced the art of reverse swing with the old ball, which was effective in sub-continent pitches. This inspired many bowlers like Anderson to follow his path and achieve sucess.

He was instrumental in India’s victory in the ICC world cup. But that was clearly the pinnacle of his career.

He yet again suffered from a slump of injuries, in England tour, and never quite recovered from it. His performance, even after the return to the international circuit, let to his eventual downfall: being dropped from the team in late-2012.

There-after, he tried to regain some form by playing in the domestic circuit. But it never improved.

He saw that fitness was his problem. Therefore he decided to undergo some rigorous training from experts in france.

Now after quite a few months of traning, he is back fitter than ever, raring to go.

His first test will be in the Challenger trophy, a yearly domestic ODI trophy. Can he be back to his best? Only time will tell.