Two months before Ricky Ponting arrives here with his team for a one-day series, Zaheer Khan has become a subject of research for the Australians after his dazzling display in England, revealed their pace spearhead Brett Lee.
The Australians will be in India to play seven one-dayers in September-October, and Lee felt Zaheer would be a big threat to their aim of a series sweep.
“We have been watching him very closely and I must say that he has done amazingly well in England. In fact, we are doing a bit of research on him,” Lee, who is in the capital to launch the new watch collection of Timex, told reporters on Tuesday.
Zaheer won the man of the series award in the recently concluded Test series after picking up 18 wickets.
“I am very impressed with his determination. He has tremendous control over the ball and it looks he has worked very hard after being on the sidelines for some time.
Consistency
“But ultimately, it’s all about putting the ball into the right areas and he has been doing it with consistency. Considering that he was not even in the team till some months ago, his comeback is just great.”
Lee, who will return to the field in next month’s Twenty20 World Championship after being sidelined by an ankle injury in February, said although the stars of the Indian team were now on the wrong side of 30, they would still be a handful for the Aussies.
“I don’t think age would have any effect on the likes of Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid or VVS Laxman. These guys never let anything affect them when they are playing against us.
“They have this knack of coming up with their best when they play Australia. We’ll have to be wary of that,” he said.
On the upcoming Twenty20 World Championship, Lee felt South Africa and England would start favourites as these sides had the most experience of playing the shortest form of the game.
“South Africa and England are the favourites. I think we also have a good chance but we have not been exposed to Twenty20 much and it will be a challenge adapting to the format. We are taking the whole thing very seriously. After all, it is a World Championship.”
