New Delhi: Not many cricketers can boast of making a comeback into the national team at the age of 38, but veteran pacer Ashish Nehra is of another league. Not the one to go down to criticism, he is proud of the fact that the selectors and the Indian captain Virat Kohli have faith in him even at a time when India boasts of some of the world’s top fast bowlers.
Ashish Nehra surprisingly has been recalled to the national side for the three-match T20I series against Australia. He last played for the country against England in a T20 match earlier this year. However, suffered an injury while playing for the Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL, just after the England series which forced him to miss a crunch part of the season.
“Who isn’t happy if he is playing for India? I have never been bothered by criticism. The Indian dressing room knows what I bring to the table. The skipper knows it, the selectors know it. If I am in the team, definitely, I must be contributing something,” said Nehra as reported by PTI.
At his age, when most players think of post-retirement plans, he will be making another comeback to the international scene and according to Nehra, he has not set a long-term goal.
“At my age, you don’t set long-term goals. I have been selected to play three games for India. I will take one game at a time. Waise bhi Ashish Nehra accha karega toh bhi news hai, accha nahi karega toh woh aur bhi badi news hain (If I do well, that’s news. If I don’t do well, that’s even bigger news).”
He was in the news sometime ago, for not keeping himself upgraded with the latest technology. But has recently started using a smartphone getting on with time and he admits that it is not long before he starts using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
However, since he is not using them at the moment, he is not disturbed about jokes centralised around him nor is he bothered of people not knowing his whereabouts.
“I don’t even know what people say about me on Twitter. Now, people may have a notion that since I am not visible on social media and now that I am in the team, where was I during the period. Well, I was religiously following my training schedule, working on my fitness, doing my bowling routines. Things you actually do to make a comeback,” said a confident Nehra having successfully made a comeback.
“Oh, yes, people didn’t know where I was but skipper Virat Kohli and chairman of selectors MSK Prasad were well aware what I was doing,” he added.
The pacer who hails from Delhi, has represented India in 26 T20 internationals, 120 ODI matches and 17 Tests.
While fast bowlers of his age looks for variations to guile the batsman, the 38-year-old Nehra still bowls at a regular pace of 140 kmph. Talking g about it he spoke on how his approach to fast bowling has been different from that of Zaheer Khan, another legendary Indian pacer who cut down pace and focused on variations during the latter stage of his career. “With Zak, you have to take into account he was playing Tests throughout his career,” he said.
“He had to bowl a lot of overs and that required him to conserve energy carefully. Also he had such an economic action, he could bowl at 80 per cent pace but with superb skill-sets disturb the batsmen.” But, “If you look at me, I have been playing T20s for quite sometime now. With my action, which is not the smoothest, I cannot bowl at 80% when all I have is 24 balls in a match. Another aspect is that, this is my action which has helped me generate the kind of pace I do at this age,” he further added.
The 2011 World Cup winner is at the twilight end of his career, but representing the tri-coloured flag is still a motivation for him.
He says, “Come February, 2018, I will complete 19 years in international cricket. Save myself and Harbhajan Singh, I don’t think there is any player who made their debuts under Mohammed Azharuddin. There has to be some kind of motivation that keeps a sportsman going.”
He has undergone and witnessed many ups and downs in his career that has been plagued with injuries.
He seems to have motivation in plenty, as he concluded saying, “And this stage of my career, I don’t need to play for money. I have had 12 surgeries. Ask any sportsman, what it takes to recover from one and here I have been under the knife 12 times. Still, in the morning when I wake up, I am keen to go for training. That’s the motivation.”