Is zaheer khan the best swing bowler in the world right now?
By pratik87
@pratik87 (1927)
India
April 3, 2009 10:24pm CST
Swing bowling is exponent zaheer khan seems to have mastered. He has been able to control the inswinger as well as the outswinger. He worked with the conventional swing during the england tour and brought reverse swing into play during the india vs australia test series in india. Do you think he is the best swing bowler in the world cricket at present?
1 person likes this
13 responses
@vinaykiran28 (5149)
• India
4 Apr 09
It seems so at present. He has performed very well in the recent past and is doing very well in the England. But it is very difficult to tell if he is the best swing bowler as he has to be consistant and his fitness has to be worked out. I remember Zaheer missing matches due to his fitness. To be a great bolwer you need to be real good like Kapil Dev. Do you agree?
@vinaykiran28 (5149)
• India
4 Apr 09
Definatley Rashmie, its not fair to compare Zaheer with Kapil. But whom do you compare Zaheer at present to say that he is the best swing bowler at present?
1 person likes this
@pratik87 (1927)
• India
4 Apr 09
Compare him with other swing bowlers of present not past. Dale steyn, james anderson. I think zaheer is way ahead of them. He has had fitness problems in the past but ever since he has come back and had a county stint as well he is much fitter and not as injury prone. Talking of kapil dev he played a lot of matches and took a lot of wickets. Had he retired earlier a young javagal srinath would have got in the earlier
1 person likes this
@rakesh284 (1472)
• India
4 Apr 09
Well Zaheer Khan has improved a lot in this season and has been consistent in his bowling.
He is bowling a good line and is troubling batsmen from different teams.
I think he and Ishant Sharma has improved our bowling line.
He is currently India's best bowler for sure but not sure about world's or not.
I am not watching that much cricket.
Just watching India's matches.
@rakesh284 (1472)
• India
5 Apr 09
I think he is better than bowlers in opponents side.
As far far our recent opponents are concerned
@abhishek71832 (470)
• India
4 Apr 09
Yes, you can say so, today only with new zealand , he picked up 5 wickets..
He has a good experience and swings the ball very skilfully indeed..
@harshsingrodia (22)
• India
6 Apr 09
all are seeing the performance of zaheer as he took 5 wickets i dont thing he is the best now there are many morefrom aus johnson from s.a steyn from srilanka vaas from england flintoff for more clarity see the icc rankings
@pratik87 (1927)
• India
6 Apr 09
i dont know if you know or not sachin tendulkar was not in the top of the all time greats list that was released by the icc. rankings do not always reflect the performances. the fact is zaheer is bowling better than all the other bowlers in the world. johnson and steyn are good bowlers but zaheer is a better swing bowler than them as he has more control then both of them.
@Informer (802)
• India
4 Apr 09
Hi Prateek,
As a fast bowler I only would like say about Zaheer that best is yet to come. He is undoubtedly one of the best bowler but the kind of rhythm he is having this time, I am sure best is yet to come from him. I think only mitchel johnson is just near to him at the moment,,,
@cashready4u (13)
• Canada
4 Apr 09
To be honest, Zaheer is one of the newbies and we should watch it for a long run because its really hard to retain performance and be consistent in all weather conditions however so far so good and also there is no comparision between Kapil and Zaheer. Kapil is not like Zaheer and neither Zaheer. It's just like to compare Gawaskar with Javed Miandad although both of them are legend of their time. We can say if Zaheer will go on with the same performance then definitely he is one of precious asset in the world of cricket.
@rashmie (947)
• United Arab Emirates
4 Apr 09
Undoubtedly, he is the best swinger in the contemporary cricket world. Though, his speed is not comparable to some other bowlers like Lee and Dayle..yet he bowls better than them.
His performance on the foreign pitches are always good, because of the nature of pitches there which supports swinger. Though at one time people began to doubt whether he will remain the striker bowler, because of the staggering rise of Irfan Pathan, he showed that he means business.
@pratik87 (1927)
• India
4 Apr 09
I agree he is not as fast as a lee or dale steyn but he can be pretty quick and surprise the batsmen with his pace when he bowls the bouncers. But the beauty of swing bowling is that you dont have to be express pace to succeed just need to be a thinking bowler and be able to control the ball. And zaheer has those qualities.
1 person likes this
@pratik87 (1927)
• India
4 Apr 09
yes he seems to using that delivery less now. and munaf patel seems to have got his yorker right. i think zaheer is relying on swing and making plans for every batsman and tends to work his way to get a batsman by setting him up with the in swing and away swing so much that he tends to forget the yorker. but he does bowl it sometimes and has got wickets for it too.
@Jasmeetsingh (167)
• India
4 Apr 09
if you would have said he is the best reverse swing bowler today i would agree hand down but you know with the new ball we see him seem the ball more than swing it , i think if you say conventional swing quite a few few players go ahead of him , jimmy anderson of england, franklin of nz , our sreeshant is also better than zaheer at swinging alone both ways, but yea great control and maybe the most complete fast bowler cricket has seen in a while, we have seen freaks like mcgrath who cut the ball all over the place but zaheer you look at him you cant see a thing that he doesnt have , maybe pace, but he goes in 140s so he is nowhere close to slow.
PS:He is the zakky chan of india
@pratik87 (1927)
• India
4 Apr 09
Agreed pk swings it more but only under lights and he is not in the test team thats why i have not talked about him. And anderson swings it only in england rarely anywhere else. He couldnt reverse swing it in india and only managed to swing it the caribbeans in one match. Zaheer can swing it with the new balls that is how he gets the left handers out at the start of the innings. And i know we will not agree with each other so just start a discussion whether zaheer can swing the new ball or not and lets see what other people have to say about it.
@Jasmeetsingh (167)
• India
4 Apr 09
which zaheer are you watching mate zaheer hardly swings the ball early in the innings rather he seems it sreshant does not have control but anderson does so if you are talking about swing bowling zaheer sadly does not bag the top spot but in helpful conditions like england you might see him swing it but not by too much PK swings it more than zaheer and with control.
PS:i like zaheer this is not against him its just that in the skill you mention he is not the best.if you would have said best medium pace bowler i would have to agree
@cudamani (996)
• India
6 Apr 09
May be the answer is yes. He is really enjoing a wonderful form and he is in his peak of performance now,and he needs the rhythm to continue for a couple of years to emerge out as one of the most feared bowlers of all time. He has age on his side and has the ability to go past several bowling records.
@stardustcdsd (1856)
• India
4 Apr 09
yes he is the best swing bowler in the world now but he is not the best among swing bowlers.
lets say he is on the way to being a swing bowler of the standards set by wasim akram.
initially i dont remember seeing zaheer swing the ball and it was during the england test series that everyone found about his ability to swing.but that was almost 16 months back.
at present i dont see any threat to zaheer in thw swing compartment
in other words,he learned how to boil water but he has yet to learn and add varieties to make a soup out of it.lol
@Jasmeetsingh (167)
• India
4 Apr 09
on the matter of variety i think zaheer is the best in the world , swing in and out, reverse in and out(reversing the out is very difficult mate not man y can do it) , he can seem both ways , his leg cutting delivery in vicious , bouncer, yorker, slower ball, if anything, the sucker ball is remaining man he has variety alright , i dont say he doesnt swing the new ball, he does but not as significantly as some of the others in the world now........but he does a wee bit and better in helpful conditions like the other day at basin reserve.
He is accurate just to add to all that. Akram could not seem as much as zaheer does other hand zaheer lacks pace and akrams yorker was sublime while zaheers boucher and slower one is better.
@acematthews71 (1084)
• India
5 Apr 09
Well zaheer khan is the next best thing currently in the swing department as he is still young & with lots of experience about swing & how to apply it in different conditions & shares the stuff with the other bowlers of the team helping them out. He also wasn't once called the "Idea baba" of the Indian team by Ishant sharma for nothing. He clearly makes plans for batsmen & if he fails one time, he is confident that the next time he would bowl to that particular batsman , then he would definitely win the battle.
@Mac6999 (705)
• India
4 Apr 09
I think Zaheer has developed really well in the past 2 years... his performances overseas have been great. he has good control over his swing which is really important. but one good thing about him is that he dosent totally rely on swing for his wickets,he can also hit the deck really well which is helpful on pitches in India.
@nikhilmutgi (40)
• India
4 Apr 09
Zaheer Khan has been bowling consistently in all the formats of the game. He has got the ability to bowl inswingers and outswingers. He is one of the best bowlers in the world cricket now. He does have the ability to lead the bowlers from the front. He would top the charts one day.
@AnkanaGhai (60)
• India
4 Apr 09
Yes I think zaheer khan is the best swing bowler right now in the world. In todays match india vs new zeeland he proved once again that he is the best. Who what a 5 wicket performance he had made today. His todays performance made india to reach close to the match and the series victory. Hats off to his performance and Dhoni's team for bringing the series victory.
@kranshuman (163)
• India
4 Apr 09
Zaheer Khan may have mastered swing bowling. But in a true sense he is still not the best swing bowler in the world right now. The young players like Mitchell Johnson still pose a threat to his ranking.But certainly the long balling experience he has made him one of the most lethat swing baller.
