New Delhi: Zaheer Khan still rocks. That's what the former India pacer did yesterday, when the visiting Delhi Daredevils put up a brilliant show against a leader-less Pune Supergiant in their Indian Premier League (IPL) match.
Put into bat for Steve Smith's stand-in Ajinkya Rahane, the visitors lost Aditya Tare in the second over. But it proved a blessing in disguise for Delhi, and for the IPL.
The arrival of Sanju Samson meant that there will be a hundred, the first one of this edition of IPL, and Delhi will have a very good score of 205.
But, the T20 world is still unpredictable. And 200+ scores have been chased down with lubricous ease in the past. And Pune still got the likes of Ben Stokes, Faf du Plessis and Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
Both the teams needed their own good starts, but it was the visitors who wrested on the opportunities, and it was led by their skipper Zaheer Khan.
The 38-year-old bowled three overs, taking three wickets – including those of Pune openers Rahane and Mayank Agarwal.
Here's the video:
He also got the wicket of Deepak Chahar towards the end of the match, but it was the two big scalps at the very outset of the innings which rang the death knell for the hosts.
Zaheer retired from international cricket in October 2015.
Delhi won the match by a whopping 97 runs.
