Ashish Nehra’s short bio

Ashish Nehra was an outstanding cricketer for India and remains one of its best bowlers. The 29-year-old was born in Delhi on April 29, 1979. Right-handed batsman, he bowls medium-fast with left arm. In 2011, he played for the Indian cricket team that won the ICC Cricket World Cup.

Background

It was his performances in domestic cricket that propelled him to the top. As a member of the Delhi Ranji team, he has played domestic cricket. A former practice ground for him was the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi. His and Virender Sehwag’s stories about going to and returning from practice are well known.

Debut

A Test match against Sri Lanka marked his debut against the world on 24 February 1999. In his only innings, he picked up 1/94. The wicket he took was Marvan Atapattu. As most of the match was affected by rain, it ended in a draw.

Later, he played his first ODI against Zimbabwe in 2001. India easily won the match by 9 wickets as he picked up 2/33 at Harare. He took his first wicket in an ODI against Alistair Campbell.

Club career

The Indian Premier League franchises he represented over the years were five different ones. For the next two years, he played for the Delhi Daredevils (DD), after spending one year with the Mumbai Indians.

In spite of his poor performance, he changed teams again. For the next couple of years, he played for the defunct Pune Warriors India. He then went back to his former franchise DD for another year.

As a player for the Chennai Super Kings, he played in 2014 and 2015. He played for Sunrisers Hyderabad from 2016 to 2017, after they were banned from the IPL for the following two years.

Records

The career of Nehra is the fourth-longest in Indian cricket (18 years, 250 days). He is the only Indian bowler to take six wickets in an ODI inning twice (against England and Sri Lanka), and he has the best bowling figures for an Indian in the ODI World Cup (6/23 against England in 2003).

Averaging 42.4, he has 44 wickets in 17 Test matches, with 4/72 his best innings bowling figure. With 157 wickets in 120 ODI matches, he has performed better in international cricket. The best of his performances is 6/23. His average in T20I matches is 22.29 and his economy rate is 7.73. He has also played 27 T20Is.

Retirement

The 31st of November marked Ashish Nehra’s retirement from international cricket. Having retired, he took up commentary and is now a member of the commentary team at Star Sports. During the upcoming IPL season, he will coach the bowling for the Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Career as a coach

Ashish Nehra was appointed bowling coach of Royal Challengers Bangalore in January 2018. During the 2019 season, he remained in the role. A new franchise of the Gujarat Titans was formed in January 2022 with him as head coach.