Pune: Chris Gayle might have hogged the limelight for Bangalore this season but on Friday, Zaheer Khan struck telling blows to steal the show in his team's 35-run win over Pune at the Subrata Roy Sahara stadium.
After Gayle and his opening partner Tillakaratne Dilshan laid the foundation for a challenging total of 173 for three, Zaheer produced a typical Test match opening spell to break the back of Pune innings, striking twice in the very first over and finishing with 2-21.
Coming around the wicket, Zaheer rapped Mohnish Mishra on the pads in the fourth ball. A ball later, he rattled Manish Pandey's timber in classical fashion -- the right hander playing for the angle and the ball, after pitching it just outside off, holding its line to beat the bat.
The hosts, already out of the reckoning, failed to recover from the early jolt and ended up with 138 for nine.
Pune wore a new look with Sourav Ganguly resting himself and handing over the captain's armband to the 22-yearold Steven Smith.
The match began an hour behind schedule following a sharp shower. As expected, Gayle (57; 31b, 3x4, 6x6) provided the launch pad. After hoisting rookie Krishnakant Upadhyay for two sixes in the third over, the cavalier batsman whacked as many boundaries off Alfonso Thomas. But he reserved his best, or the worst for Bhuvneshwar Kumar, smacking him for four sixes in the in the sixth over of the innings. Dilshan (53; 44b, 6x4, 1x6) too went against the run of play.
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