In the late 1990s, Rediff.com reporters went to Chennai, to report on the workings of the MRF Pace Academy. While there, we saw a tall, strapping youngster running in with purpose, bowling with pace and aggression.
Dennis Lillee, visiting coach at the Academy, confirmed the evidence of our eyes: Here was a likely answer to those who said Indians could never bowl fast. And here, too, was the left-arm spearhead India had vainly sought since the days of Karsan Ghavri.
We were all set to profile the lad, when Lillee intervened. "Don't write about him just yet," he cautioned. "He has a fragile mind; praise him, and he believes he has nothing more to learn. He needs very careful handling."
That assessment was to prove prescient.
Unlike most Indian cricketing stories, Zaheer came very late to the game. It was only after he had finished school that he first picked up a cricket ball.
That was in 1996; two years later he was in the MRF Academy; shortly thereafter he was picked on merit to train at the Australian Cricket Academy, and played for the academy team against counterparts from the New Zealand Cricket Academy.
He also played league cricket in Chennai for Globe Trotters, the MRF Academy team, made the national side shortly thereafter, announced himself with that amazing delivery to Steve Waugh, and seemed set -- in just four years after he had bowled for the first time with a cricket ball -- to take over from Javagal Srinath as the warhead of India's bowling attack.
Also see: The Unbelievable Upset!
India in the United Kingdom 2007
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