Ashish Nehra, The Return Of The Comeback Kid

His body language on the cricket field can seem deceptively nonchalant – deceptive being the key word. No bombastic moves for him, no attention seeking tactics...

- Sreelata S. Yellamrazu

Ashish Nehra’s cricket career has been anything but ordinary. On the cusp of turning thirty-seven years of age, the left arm fast bowler is showing that there is more life in the game of a fast bowler and that age need not be a barrier – not even for arguably one of the toughest jobs in the business of sport.

Ashish Nehra is not your typically average fast bowler, although at first glance, there is little that separates him from his tribe. His body language on the cricket field can seem deceptively nonchalant – deceptive being the key word. No bombastic moves for him, no attention seeking tactics. It would appear boring-business-as-usual as he busies himself at the top of his run up. Yet Nehra is doing at age thirty-six what many bowlers can only hope to emulate when the odds are stacked against them.

At the outset Ashish Dewan Singh Nehra must seem like a fossil amongst fledglings. But for his lanky frame, he could have well have appeared like an aging mentor looking to regain lost youth. He does not sport the gray hair that has come to define Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s tenure as skipper of the Indian team and his quiet demeanour has been taken for silence as his young team mates pull his leg about his conspicuous absence on social media and networking sites.

However, his lean frame and soft spoken demeanour are as deceptive as his bowling action. There is a sense of an open book about him because of the simplicity of his philosophy to bowling in particular and life in general. Bowling at full throttle and swinging the ball at an age when most fast medium bowlers gently trudge to continue playing the game they love, Nehra believes in all or nothing.