Perhaps the ravishing moments in cricket were encapsulated by the magnificent moves of Zaheer Khan more than other instances. It should be noted that of all the batsmen Zaheer bowled to, apart from his records that are remarkable in all forms of the game, there is one batsman who deserves to speak more.
Zaheer was a tough customer to face, being able to swing the new ball in both directions and reverse-swing the old ball, and he had a particular taste for left handed batsmen, but particularly for former South Africa captain Graeme Smith.
About this Smith had said in his few interviews with cricket .com, “He was someone, against whom, you would all want to be on your guard.”
But to put it frankly, there is no disputing that whenever there was a clash between Zaheer and Smith, Smith may as well be going back to the pavilion since snipper Zaheer had Smith on his numeric arsenal ammunition.
The South African opener faced Zaheer on 11 occasions in Test matches where he was removed by the Indian pacer on 7 occasions.
Zee also beat Smith 6 and 1 times in 14 ODIs and 2 T20s respectively.
In the Interview Smith said, “Zaheer was one of the skilful bowlers I’ve faced, especially to left-handed batsmen,” he said. “He swung the ball, swaying it away, and had a very good variation of pace. He bowled good reverse swing too.”
“Obviously there were times when he bested me akim, a couple of times! As for him, yes he was definitely of the best bowlers I have faced in my whole career thus far.”
Zaheer played a total of 92 Tests, 200 one-day internationals and 17 Twenty 20 international matches. He retired having taken 311, 282 and 17 wickets respectively.
