Zaheer Khan

Zaheer Khan (born 8 October 1978) is a former Indian cricketer who represented the national team across all formats from 2000 to 2014. A left-arm fast-medium bowler, he was skilled at moving the ball both ways off the pitch and generating swing—especially reverse swing—with the older ball. In Test cricket, he is India’s second-most successful pace bowler, tied with Ishant Sharma, behind only Kapil Dev.

Khan holds a notable record for dismissing four of the game’s most feared left-handed batsmen—Graeme Smith, Kumar Sangakkara, Sanath Jayasuriya, and Matthew Hayden—more than ten times each in international cricket. He also has the third-highest number of left-handed batsmen dismissals (237), after Muttiah Muralitharan (325) and Shaun Pollock (252).

He began his domestic career with Baroda. In Tests, his bowling average was around 36 at home and 31 away. Khan was part of the Indian team that jointly won the 2002 ICC Champions Trophy and was a key member of the 2011 World Cup-winning side, leading the pace attack with 21 wickets in nine matches. In 2011, he received the Arjuna Award, India’s second-highest sporting honour, from the President of India.

Recurring injuries often interrupted his international career, prompting him to establish ProSport Fitness & Services, a rehabilitation and training centre, in partnership with Adrian Le Roux and Andrew Leipus.

Khan was named one of Wisden’s Cricketers of the Year in 2008. He retired from international cricket in October 2015. He played county cricket for Worcestershire and featured in the Indian Premier League for Royal Challengers Bangalore, Delhi Daredevils, and Mumbai Indians. In 2020, the Government of India awarded him the Padma Shri. He served as mentor for the IPL team Lucknow Super Giants during the 2025 edition.

Khan was born on 8 October 1978 in Shrirampur, Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra, into a Marathi Muslim family to Zakia and Bakhtiyar Khan. He has an elder brother, Zeeshan, and a younger brother, Anees. He began coaching under Utsav Yadav and attended New Marathi Primary School and K.J. Somaiyya Secondary School in Shrirampur. He also played for the local Revenue Colony Cricket Club (RCC) before starting his career in Pune. On 24 April 2017, he announced his engagement to actress Sagarika Ghatge; they married on 23 November 2017. The couple have a son, born in 2025.

Khan moved to Mumbai in 1996 and joined the National Cricket Club, playing in Division A. He competed in the Kanga Cricket League, Comrade Shield, and Purshottam Shield. His captain, Sandeep Mahadkar, recalled an instance where Khan reverse-swung a ball bowled 50 overs old, bowling ten maiden overs to help his team win a Comrade Shield game. Another former teammate remembered Khan’s batting ability, including an unbeaten 62 in a 102-run ninth-wicket stand. His standout performance came with 7/74 against Shivaji Park Gymkhana in January 1997. Sudhir Naik, owner of the National Cricket Club, sent him to the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai, where bowling coach T. A. Sekhar, impressed by his talent, encouraged him to play for Baroda.

Playing for Baroda at the first-class level, Khan quickly made a name for himself. In the final of the 2000–01 Ranji Trophy against Railways, he earned man of the match honours with match figures of 8/145, including a five-wicket haul (5/16) in the second innings, helping Baroda win the trophy for the fifth time and first in 43 years. He transferred to Mumbai for the 2006–07 season, making his debut for the team in the Ranji Trophy final, where he took nine wickets as Mumbai defeated Bengal.

In 2005, Khan signed with Worcestershire as an overseas player, replacing Shoaib Akhtar. On debut, he took ten wickets against Somerset, becoming the first Worcestershire player in over a century to achieve that feat. In June, he took the first nine wickets against Essex, finishing with 9–138; he would have taken all ten had wicket-keeper Steven Davies not dropped a catch off the last man, Darren Gough.

In the IPL, Khan played for Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians before being picked by Delhi Daredevils in the 2015 auction. He captained the Daredevils in 2016 and 2017. In the 2017 season, he became the 10th bowler overall and 8th Indian to take 100 IPL wickets; at 38, he was the oldest to reach that milestone.

Zaheer was selected for the first intake of the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore in 2000. He made his Test debut against Bangladesh and his ODI debut against Kenya during the 2000 ICC KnockOut Trophy that same year. In late 2005, the emergence of pacemen Sreesanth and R. P. Singh made it difficult for him to hold his place in the playing eleven. The BCCI demoted him from a B-grade to a C-grade contract at the end of the year. He returned for the 2005 tour of Pakistan, where India fielded three left-arm pacemen and struggled to dismiss the opposition.