Biography

Few bowlers can be as ordinary and unplayable in equal measure as Ashish Nehra. A left-arm seamer with a side-on action, the Delhi-born player is gifted with pace and swing. His earliest taste of international cricket came in 1999 against Sri Lanka in a one-off Test appearance that resulted in a draw. He returned to the fold after a couple of years, during India's tour of Zimbabwe, playing all of the two Tests and five ODIs. In Tests though, Nehra failed to achieve notable breakthroughs as a front-line seamer.

He continued to be a part of the setup until 2005, featuring in India's 2003 World Cup final run and the side’s respectable showing in Australia at the Border-Gavaskar Trophy the same year. Yet, under the hood, it became clear that Nehra's inclusion was only a stop-gap arrangement until Irfan Pathan and Zaheer Khan became accomplished and by year end, that left-arm pairing became consistent enough to replace Nehra.

For four years, there was no talk of Nehra before he earned a surprise call-up in 2009 to tour the West Indies. Still it seemed his inconsistencies hadn't been ironed out, but as a strike bowler his knack of taking wickets saw an upswing. Regular 3-fors and 4-fors, along with injuries to the young breed kept Nehra's slot until 2010.

Nehra was named in the 15-member Indian squad for the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup, but missed out on most of the matches. He received a lot of flak for a poor final over in the match against South Africa in the league stage which India lost, and was dropped. However, given his experience, he was recalled into the playing eleven for the crucial semi-final against Pakistan where he put up a decent performance. In 2012, he was signed by Pune for the fifth edition of the lucrative Indian T20 league. The following year, Delhi bought him for the sixth edition before Chennai bagged him in the next season. Although, he enjoyed his most fruitful season with Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2016-17. 

With age catching up and his body going through a lot of stress, the Delhi speedster called it quits from all form of cricket. He was handed a heartfelt farewell at his home ground by the BCCI in the first match of the 3-T20I series against New Zealand in 2017. To put his career in a nutshell, Nehra had a lot of potential but due to injuries, he underachieved.