The national cricket selectors face a tricky task of selecting the bowling combination when they meet here tomorrow to pick the Indian Test squad for Sachin Tendulkar's farewell series against the West Indies next month.
While the focus of the series will be on Tendulkar, who will retire after completing 200 Tests, the selectors will be prompted to take stock of the bowling options and even look at a fit-again Zaheer Khan, who picked up five wickets in Mumbai's Ranji Trophy opener against Haryana.
Zaheer off late has been out of the national team with injuries and fitness issues and last played an international Test in December 2012, against England.
But the 35-year-old left-arm pacer is in better shape now after undergoing a gruelling fitness training in France. Zaheer's inclusion will give a major boost to India's pace department which has been struggling in the ongoing ODI series against Australia.
Ishant Sharma looked far from impressive in the ODIs against Australia and is likely to get the boot, while Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, who opened the bowling with the lanky Delhi bowler against, is lacking in pace.
With South Africa tour in the back of their mind, Sandeep Patil and company would be tempted to include highly-exprienced Zaheer along with the pace duo of Umesh Yadav and Shami Ahmed.