Zaheer needs to be protected
Paceman will do well to cut down his shorter-version assignments
The disastrous tours of England and Australia have spurred the mandarins’ thoughts about charting a definitive course for the future of Indian cricket.
Most of the plans have been centered on batsmen, and on issues like phasing out seniors and bringing in youngsters. But such a plan seems to have been lacking in shaping the future of bowling, and to be more precise, in managing the workload of Zaheer Khan.
It’s true that Zaheer understands his body well, and the limit to which it can be stretched, but if the recent trend is to be taken as an indication then there’s a strong case for handling him better to extend his career at the highest level, and his presence in the Test team should be given priority ahead of one-dayers and T20s.
Zaheer had limped out of India’s England tour after bowling just 13.3 overs at Lord’s in late July, and it took him more than three months to recover from a subsequent ankle surgery, and he made it to the tour of Australia after proving his fitness, playing a couple of Ranji Trophy matches for Mumbai.
The left-arm pacer has reached the fourth Test in Australia, a first in his career, without showing any discomfort, but that should not make us forget about his tryst with injuries in the last two years. It all began in February 2010, when he suffered a muscle strain on leg during the Kolkata Test against South Africa, and missed the fifth day of the match and the following one-day series.
From that point, Zaheer needed to spend time with physio five more times for injuries ranging from groin strain to shoulder injury. That’s a frightening rate for a player who has turned 33 recently, and remains India’s best bowling option across all formats.
So, the time has come for the team management and the selectors to sit together and discuss Zaheer’s workload because it’s quite naïve to imagine him to be a part of India’s 2015 World Cup campaign at the age of 36. The burden of playing all three formats along with the Indian Premier League and Champions League will be too heavy to handle even for someone like Zaheer, who controls his body mechanism to a nicety.
In that context, it will be in his and the team’s best interest for Zaheer to give up one-dayers and international T20s to reduce his stress level and workload, and he has a model in front of him in skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who recently said that he would have to retire from one format – in his case Test cricket – to last till the 2015 World Cup.
In these days of extravagant money, it’s natural for players to feel insecure about relinquishing one-day and T20 formats that could have an adverse impact on prospects like an IPL contract. However, Zaheer is already on the rolls of Royal Challengers Bangalore for another years, taking such thoughts out of equation.
Still, Zaheer might feel it tough to take such a decision because he has retained his efficiency in all the three formats, home and away, and has evolved as one of the cleverest bowlers in the world. It’s indeed difficult for a professional athlete to abandon one part of his sport when at the top of his trade.
But it’s an option, unpleasant on the face of it, Zaheer has to explore sooner than later to prolong his career.
