Amidst the Ravi Shastri drama, Zaheer Khan’s appointment should be celebrated

Traditionally, pace bowlers have rarely been considered a cerebral lot. Their lot has generally (and mostly falsely) been considered to be the type dependent more on brawn than brain.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Even if they have the pace to blast you away, fast bowlers relying only on that almost always tend to spray it around. Without a calculative mind, no pacer can utilise their gifts. And if there’s one man in Indian cricket who could be considered the front-runner in this regard, it is Zaheer Khan.

Zak is the thinking person’s fast bowler. He had pace, oodles of it when he started his career in 2000, a prodigious talent with a yorker to die for. But frequent injuries tied him down. A weaker bowler may have succumbed and quit – Zaheer Khan did not. He came back with a short run-up, sacrificing speed for a razor-sharp mind. And rather than bundling batsmen out, he preferred to checkmate them.

Glowing testimonials

But one thing which stood out about him was his generosity. As a senior member of the India team, Khan was the undisputed leader of the pace attack and had as much impact in a mentoring role. Here’s what Ishant Sharma said about him when Zaheer retired from international cricket in October 2015:

“A very good example of what difference Zak pa made in my bowling was the 2008 Border-Gavaskar Series. I picked up 15 wickets and was declared the Man of the Series. Why? Because of Zak pa. In India a pace bowler’s biggest strength is the reverse swing. At that time, I could only reverse the ball in. Zak pa taught me how to reverse the ball away from the batsman – simple things like how your hand should be and where the seam should face. It was a very small thing but it made a huge difference.

As a bowler it took me a long time to get used to life without Zak pa. But I was able to transform myself as the team’s lead pacer because of what he taught me. No one knows how big an influence Zak pa has been in my life. He groomed me as a bowler. He took a young, raw fast bowler under his wing and made me a mature bowler I am today. I owe so much to Zak pa, and I cannot thank him enough for all that he has done for me.”

Dig around a little and you’ll find everyone has nothing but superlatives for India’s best left-arm pacer. “The bowling Sachin,” praised MS Dhoni. “One of the coolest pace bowlers I know,” said Sachin himself. “A great bowler for India,” said Sourav Ganguly, the captain under whom he made his debut. But perhaps, the most instructive was what Eric Simons, India’s bowling coach between 2010 and 2012, said about him.

“Zaheer Khan is the bowling coach on the field”, said Simons in 2013. It was reflective of the deep technical knowledge which the left-hander brings to the field. It’s evident in how he analyses his own bowling: “Pace has never been the most important criteria for me. Obviously you cannot be bowling at 125kph, but if I am able to bowl at 135 with variations and have control over line and length it is equivalent to bowling as quick as 140kph,” he said in an interview.

An intelligent, crafty appointment

And while other countries have already appreciated his brilliance – Pat Cummins wanted to take Zaheer Khan home to Australia – it took longer for India’s cricketing establishment. But thankfully, better late than never. The Cricket Advisory Committee should be lauded for their step to bring in Khan as India’s new bowling consultant on Tuesday because he will serve as the best mentor they could have ever found for India’s promising pace unit. What sets the 38-year-old apart is that, apart from his technical knowhow, he understands the Indian set-up.

That will play a vital role in a country which has traditionally not been able to groom pacers well. Whereas a foreign bowling coach might recommend a set of drills and training procedures, Zaheer will be in a much better position to understand what will work for an Indian pacer and what won’t. He is aware of the limitations of the set-up, having worked around it himself and will be in a perfect position to guide the likes of Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami and Ishant Sharma.

After a long time, India have a very good pace-bowling line-up but there is work to be done and this is where Zaheer will come in. Jasprit Bumrah can be brilliant with the old ball, but he needs more improvement on his skills with the new ball, along with fixing his no-ball problem. Bhuvneshwar Kumar is in the perfect place, but Zaheer has to ensure he does not fall away.

As for Shami, he can learn a lot from how Zaheer Khan managed an injury-prone career – managing workloads to ensure he was at optimum capacity. Umesh Yadav can pick Zaheer’s brain on using his pace intelligently to work batsmen out. Finally, if Ishant Sharma can step up to be a leader of an attack in Zaheer’s mould, India will be greatly benefited.

The trick is about maintaining that intensity and making it an era of sustained success. For too long, it’s been a flash in the pan. But if there’s one person who can keep the fire of India’s pace burning, it has to be the warrior from Baroda, Zaheer Khan.