Ashish Nehra hopes life after cricket is eventful
“If you can, then sprint. If not, then run. Can’t run? Then jog. Won’t jog? Then at least walk! Can’t walk? Then crawl but just keep on moving,” says Ashish Nehra as he gets ready to bid adieu to the game that has given him everything in all these years.
A total of 163 international matches across three formats in 20 years is not the greatest piece of statistic but the straight-talking Nehra will remain an enigma for what he could have achieved had he not gone under knife 12 times.
“Trust me, I have had an eventful 20 years. I am not a very emotional person. The next 20 years is what I am looking forward to. Hopefully, it will be as eventful as it has been since I started playing for Delhi in 1997,” Nehra said during a free-wheeling chat at his academy in Noida, ahead of his final competitive match against New Zealand on November 1.
“It’s been a great journey. May be one regret. If I could change anything in these 20 years, that afternoon in Johannesburg during the 2003 World Cup final. But nothing else, as it’s all about destiny,” he said with his customary nonchalance. OLD SCHOOL Talk about the journey that started at Delhi’s famous Sonnet Club in early ’90s, he is thoroughly old school with loads of anecdotes. “During my first Ranji Trophy game at Kotla, Delhi team had late Raman Lamba, Ajay Sharma, Atul Wassan and Robin Singh junior. Raman bhaiya and Ajay bhaiya, I have grown up bowling to them at Sonnet nets. Difficult to forget Raman Lamba. Dada player thaa (cricketing lingo for dominating batsman),” he reminisces.
“And Ajay Sharma, well I can tell you about his cricket. With no disrespect to all the current spinners in our country — Ajay would have murdered them even on rank turners. He was that good at domestic level,” he recollected.
“I remember bowling onechange in my debut Ranji game as Robin Junior and Wassan (his last first-class match) were bowling with the new ball. I got Ajay Jadeja for duck in both innings.
He has seen the quiet resurgence under John Wright, been through the tumultuous phase under Greg Chappell, had a second coming under Gary Kirsten and the final flourish under Ravi Shastri.
Talk about Virat Kohli and Nehra would say that Ravi Shastri is the ideal foil for Kohli. “Look, Virat’s career and captaincy are on auto-pilot mode right now.
“He knows what he is doing and leads by example. He doesn’t need gyaan (sermons) but support which Ravi gives him in abundance,” he said.
“You know the best part about Ravi. If a player is going through a rough patch, he is the man.