Zaheer Khan Open to Coaching Young Indian Bowlers

Zaheer Khan after announcing his retirement from worldwide cricket in Mumbai on Thursday.

Zaheer’s last Test appearance came against New Zealand in February 2014, while he has not played global limited-overs cricket for three years, and the 37-year-old admitted he was unsure if his body would hold up to the rigours of another season of action.

On Thursday morning, Rajeev Shukla posted on his Twitter account that Zaheer will call time on his career and hoped he continues to play in IPL.

Injuries may have robbed him of another couple of hundred wickets in global cricket but what he has achieved in the course of his decade and a half long career has certainly placed him in the pantheon of greats. He will, however, call time on his domestic career after the conclusion on the 2016 Indian Premier league (IPL 9). He took 21 wickets in total to be the joint highest wicket-taker and led the pace attack for India during their successful campaign. “Cricket has made me the individual I am, giving me everything in life and much more. I walk away with fantastic memories, life-defining experiences and great friendships”.

With 311 wickets in 92 Tests, Khan is India’s fourth-highest Test wicket-taker behind Anil Kumble, Kapil Dev and Harbhajan Singh.

Seldom does a team find a gem like Zaheer who is willing to learn and unlearn in order to improve and match his game with the world’s best.

BCCI Secretary, Anurag Thakur said: “Zaheer will go down as one of the finest fast bowlers in the history of Indian cricket”.

In many ways, it was Zaheer who got India’s World Cup campaign back on track 2011 after England had nearly scripted an upset win in Bengaluru. “Especially with me, knowing that “Zak is Back” can happen, I thought that I can give that push”, Zaheer said.

“It [retirement] is a very emotional and tough decision in any athlete’s life I would say. It has been a privilege to be part of various teams during my career including the Indian cricket team, Baroda, Mumbai, Worcestershire (critical to my comeback in the national team in 2007), Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bangalore and Delhi Daredevils”.

“If the BCCI offers another option, I will favour the bilateral series”, he said, adding that the PCB Board of Governors had to take the final decision in this regard. There is a particular way in which you can release the ball to get the maximum out of it. If you don’t do that and don’t hide the ball appropriately, you won’t get that. He played in three World Cups for India and was a member of the World Cup-winning squad in 2011 and the runner-up team in 2003.

Zaheer ends up with a heap of 610 global wickets during his career that spanned for 14 years. “But because I always was playing with the Indian team, I could not do it at that point. Each game was an opportunity that allowed me to express myself freely in the best way I could – on the cricket field, always trying to improve as a player. Modern day bowlers find it hard to use a scuffed cricket ball, but with the man from the tiny village of Shrirampur, the old ball was a deadly weapon”.