Zak and Zeal: Hail the Old Fox

When Zaheer Khan was appointed Captain of the Delhi Daredevils for season IX of the Indian Premier League, doubting Thomases predicted another seventh or eighth place finish for the franchise for whom bringing up the rear had become a habit.
Zaheer had had precious little experience in leading outfits. He had captained Mumbai sporadically in the Ranji Trophy whenever he was in rehab or was on a break from international duty.
The decision of mentor Rahul Dravid and coach Paddy Upton to elevate a fast bowler, who has always seemed reluctant to accept visible leadership roles, is now turning out to be a masterstroke.Historically, fast bowlers have never been looked at as good captains. They also have never been credited with too much intelligence. "They run in, bowl fast, sledge bowlers and walk away", is the general perception.
Why, Zaheer himself had that kind of an image. Remember the 2003 World Cup final against Australia at Johannesburg. On a pitch that had plenty of life, he focused more on eyeballing Mathew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist and sledging them and was over-keyed for the contest. The result was disastrous. His first over went for 15 and he sprayed the ball all over the place in subsequent spells and India could never recover from that.
His transformation to a pro who could talk less and make the ball talk more happened when he spent a season playing county cricket in Worcester in 2006 when he fell out of favour in the Greg Ghappell-Rahul Dravid regime. Chappell had infamously labelled some players as 'cancers' within the Indian team and it was rumoured that Zaheer was one of the cricketers he was referring to.
Zaheer had played an instrumental part in India winning a Test series in England after 1986 in 2007 and Dravid was skipper then. Dravid and Zaheer have always appeared to be an odd pair. The No.3 batsman has a reputation of being very studious and his approach of focusing on the processes more than results probably didn't sit well with Zaheer early on. However, now as coach and mentor the two have struck a wonderful partnership.
A few years ago, former Bengal pacer and India discard Ashok Dinda had said whenever Zaheer Khan retires, the BCCI should just make him India's bowling coach as the man knows so much about fast bowling. Talk to rival batsmen who face him in the Ranji Trophy and they say no one knows how to use the old ball quite like Zaheer does. Young Mumbai bowlers like Shardul Thakur too have learnt the tricks of the trade while playing under him or with him for Mumbai.
In the 2011 World cup, he came out with the slower knuckle ball that enabled him to get wickets of set batsmen in the middle-overs which proved to be the key to India's victorious campaign as he bagged 21 wickets. While MS Dhoni was the skipper of that side, Zak was the undisputed bowling captain of the team.
Prior to that in the 2010 IPL when he played for Mumbai Indians, he and Lasith Malinga were often spotted discussing tactics and field placements and they combined magically as MI made the final.
In the ODI and T20 format and even franchise-based cricket like the IPL or Big Bash, whenever the batsman hits a bowler for a sequence of boundaries, the camera generally pans on captains and they have the usual hands on the hips pose and sport a large frown on the face. You don't get to see a lot of that with Zaheer. He is generally seen applauding the bowler, making subtle changes to the field, changing angles and gauding his troops to focus on what they want to do off the next ball.
Why, he even patted Umesh Yadav, who was playing for rivals KKR at the Kotla, after engineering another win, for he had bowled a great spell in the first half of the game. That is typical of the man. Even when he played club cricket and office cricket on the maidans in Mumbai, Zaheer has always played mentor while fielding at mid-on or mid-off. He does not like to field in the deep too much as that cuts him off from the action in the middle. If one speaks to Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel, RP Singh and Ishant Sharma about Zaheer bhai and what they have learnt from him, they speak about the left-armer in reverred tones.
In this IPL, Zaheer's captaincy skills really came to the fore in the game against Mumbai Indians at the Kotla a fortnight ago. With only 160-odd to defend, he managed to squeeze out a tight win for the franchise by bowling Amit Mishra and Imran Tahir in tandem and prising out key wickets and guiding Chris Morris every ball in the final over.
Zaheer may not have a Level 3 coaching certificate, but what he does have in abundance in street-smartness and a love for bowling and coaching. In 2008, after impressing in a hard-fought series loss to Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka, Chaminda Vaas sought time out with Zaheer to discuss the art of reverse swing. Vaas, statistically, has been more successful than the Indian. However, when it comes to pedigree, it is the Indian who probably scores and the Sri Lankan legend acknowledged that.
The BCCI would do well to see what is obvious and reward him with a package and position that keeps him in India. Otherwise, there are a lot of other cricket boards and cricketers who are keen to use his services and learn from him.