Top 5 comebacks by Indian players in Test cricket
It is rightly said that the road to greatness is not marked by perfection, but the ability to overcome adversity and failure. There isn’t a single sportsperson who has played for a certain length of time and hasn’t been stricken by injury or poor form. But, only a few are able to surmount the associated physical and psychological distress to emerge as champions.
The history of Indian cricket is galore with such great men who fought all the odds to make a startling comeback in the toughest format of the game.
As Harbhajan Singh makes a return to the Indian team for the one-off Test against Bangladesh, we turn the pages in history to look back at the top 5 comebacks made by Indian cricketers in Test cricket.
5. Zaheer Khan
Like tigers, fast bowlers in India are an endangered species. They enter the cricketing arena with tremendous ability & pace but fade away much quicker. Even for those who manage to sustain, the journey to success is far from being rosy.
In a land of spinners, Zaheer Khan was one such exception who rose to fame through his sheer pace and toe-crunching yorkers. Over the years, he evolved his bowling both as per the changing demands of the game and those of his injury-prone body.
Struggling with form and fitness in the lead up to the 2004-05 season, Zaheer was dropped from the Indian Test team. Instead of sulking over his exclusion, the fast bowler made the best use of this opportunity to fine-tune his skills with the ball. He played exceptionally well for Worcestershire in county cricket in England and clamoured for his return back into the Indian team through sheer weight of performance.
Zaheer made a successful comeback in 2006 to pick eight more five-fors in Test cricket and became India’s pace bowling spearhead for the next five years. He also turned out to be an important weapon in the MS-Dhoni led team that achieved the No.1 ranking in Test cricket in 2009.