- Zaheer Khan:
While his fans can boast of the fact that Zaheer was probably India’s greatest pacer since Kapil Dev, but people who have followed his career are aware that he couldn’t be at his full optimization thanks to injuries.
In his own self, Khan stands among the biggest match winners for India. His record is simply impeccable, and he was the Man of the Series in India’s historic series in England in 2007. But there have been several missed opportunities for the Mumbai pacer mainly due to knee, shoulder and groin injuries. Twice, yes twice he had missed the Test series’ in Australia after breaking down right in the very first game of the tour.
In 2003, he was breathing fire at the Gabba and was a demon for the Aussies as his burst rattled them. Zaheer was so lethal that he even sent back Steve Waugh to the dressing room, retired hurt. But then, he broke down after the first Test and had to miss the remaining games of the tour.
History repeated itself exactly after four years, as after getting a five wicket haul on the opening day of the tour at the MCG, he once again broke down, to miss the entire tour.
Call it fate or whatever, but another three and a half years later, just as he dismissed the English openers on a gloomy London morning, he was pictured holding his hamstring on the opening day of the series. That was it. That was his end of the tour and ironically, his last one to England. He did make a comeback to the Test side for the tours of South Africa and New Zealand and was even supposed to lead the attack for the tour to England in 2014, but he picked up another injury in the IPL in Dubai, and that was the end of his career.
Having missed three series’ outside the subcontinent, his numbers would have been even better had he been less injury prone.