Kapil worried about injury-prone Zaheer's longevity

Sep 07, 2011 |

Southampton

Tags:

Former Indian captain Kapil Dev does not foresee Zaheer Khan spearheading the team's attack for a very long time as he feels a fast bowler getting injured at the wrong side of age has to do something 'extraordinary to come back'.

"If a fast bowler starts getting injured at the wrong side of age, the recovery is very difficult. He would have to do something extraordinary to come back, otherwise he would play a few matches and get injured again," said Kapil who took 434 Test wickets from 131 Tests with his fast-medium swing bowling.

Zaheer has served India for 79 Tests and taken 273 wickets yet he hardly is able to go through a Test series without an injury, the latest instance being the one during the first Test at Lord's in July.

There are many who also see Sachin Tendulkar nearing the end of his one-day career -- he is sitting out of the ongoing one-day series because of a toe injury -- due to his advancing age and preference for Test cricket.

Kapil, though, believes Tendulkar's case is different to Zaheer. "With a batsman, it's different. Sachin can make a comeback. He has already done everything, there's nothing left. The one century (remaining) would come anyway."

"Sachin has to make up his mind what he wants to do. He knows his body and he alone can answer how good he feels. People like us who are sitting outside can't make a comment on it."

While on individuals, Kapil's concern also extended to Gautam Gambhir whom he regards as a brilliant batsman. Gambhir recently suffered a head injury during the Test series.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/94633" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-aa3b672690723987449fe348f09fa709" value="form-aa3b672690723987449fe348f09fa709" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="81119581" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>