Virender Sehwag Compares Ashish Nehra With Virat Kohli

Former Indian batsman, Virender Sehwag, has revealed the key behind Ashish Nehra‘s fitness as he has said that the fast bowler undergoes a rigorous schedule when he is not playing competitive cricket,

“The secret behind Nehra’s fitness is when is not playing international cricket, he spends almost 8 hours in the gym (two sessions of 4 hours each). And if today he is a part of the T20 team, it is because he has passed the ‘yo-yo’ test. He scored almost 17-18 in the yo-yo test, touching Virat Kohli’s score,” Sehwag told India TV.

Veteran fast-bowler’s selection in the team came as a surprise as in past few months, the first criteria set to feature in the team is to clear the yo-yo test and to look at Nehra’s age, everyone was surprised how he cleared the test when players like Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina failed to get the desired result.

Speaking on the same, former explosive batsman said that being a fast bowler is a boon for Nehra and he is also touching Virat Kohli’s mark in this aspect,

“Nehra is a fast bowler and never faces any issues while running. So, he doesn’t endure many problems in clearing the “yo-yo” test. Nehra likes to stay fit and spend time in the gym. It is not that he is doing it forcefully. He likes to run, swim and I think he would have easily covered the distance of 20 meters in the yo-yo test. He has also an advantage of his height… he is over 6 feet and has a long stride,” he added.

The 38-year-old has undergone a total of 12 surgeries in his 18-year-old career and now only plays the shortest format of the game for the country. The last ODI he played was way back in 2011, and he had already given up playing Test cricket a long ago, though he is yet to announce his retirement from any of the three formats.

Nehra, recently himself, admitted that he now possesses the stamina of bowling only four overs, a job in which he is perfect.

India will take on Australia on 7^th October in Ranchi’s JSCA stadium to start the three-match T20I series.