Ashish Nehra Opens Up On His Longevity

At 38, 9 out of 10 fast-bowlers will seriously contemplate retiring from the game. In fact, in today’s rigorous game where injuries have become the part and parcel of the career, very few manage to continue fast-bowling at such an age. However, Ashish Nehra is an exception by a big distance. At 38, the veteran fast-bowler has made a comeback to the national team for the upcoming three-match T20I series against Australia and he is excited as ever to don the famous blue jersey again.

Not surprisingly, everyone wants to know the reason that has allowed Nehra to sustain his body to bowl at his best even at this age and the left-arm pacer has given an insight on it.

Comparing himself with his former teammate Zaheer Khan, who dropped his pace considerably towards the end of the career, Nehra said: “With Zak, you have to take into account he was playing Tests throughout his career. 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.”

“If you look at me, I have been playing T20s for quite some time now. With my action, which is not the smoothest, I cannot bowl at 80 per cent 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,” Nehra explained.

Nehra is not a regular in the Indian team at the moment but there is absolutely no dearth of motivation for him when it comes to playing for India.

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“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,” said Nehra.“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,” he concluded.

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