Left Arm Fast (Medium)

I enjoyed the late nineties. It was a simpler time. Cricket was life and life was cricket. No one obsessively took pictures of their food, and players took the umpire’s word for it when a dodgy LBW decision went against them. There was no DRS, no HawkEye, no Snickometer and no Hotspot technology. Virat Kohli was all of 11 years old. India and Pakistan could tour each other’s countries. Sri Lanka and India played way too frequently and Sachin Tendulkar was revered as God’s gift to mankind. Because some things don’t change.

In February 1999, a lanky left-arm seamer made his debut for India. He looked awkward in his run-up and awkward at the crease. It looked like he was struggling to keep his limbs from flailing in a hundred different directions at once, and I suppose he hoped that just for a moment, they'd cooperate with him to deliver that piece of leather and cork to its destination somewhere on the pitch. It was almost painful to watch and yet, deliver it he did.

He wasn’t the spearhead of the attack, nor was he terribly consistent. There was Zaheer Khan for that, stepping in to the big shoes of India’s most potent spearhead after Kapil Dev, Javagal Srinath. Ashish Nehra was destined to be the next generation’s Venkatesh Prasad.

The mid to late nineties had seen its fair share of Indian fast (medium) bowlers, from the dreadfully innocuous Dodda Ganesh to the incomprehensible selection of Harvinder Singh, to the strange-but-sometimes-effective Debashish Mohanty, to a point where Sourav Ganguly was at times the most effective of India’s ‘quicks’.

Growing up in the post-Srinath era was a tough one, in that it was difficult for a young Indian cricket fan to orientate themselves to two left-arm seamers opening the attack. And yet, by the time the World Cup came around in 2003, we were well accustomed to it. The fact that this tournament happened to be at the same time as one of the biggest exams of my life had absolutely no bearing on whether I was going to watch it in its entirety or not.

One of the only times I’ve done worse than I should have on an exam happened the day after the England vs India match, and I assure you that that wasn’t a coincidence. I remember clearly than ever, the nonchalance with which an Indian seam bowler seemed to have the number of every English batsman on the day. A day that will forever be remembered for the accomplishments of a certain left-arm fast (medium) pacer.

Ashish Nehra retired yesterday from all forms of cricket, and it feels like an eternity since he made his debut. I realised that he’s been playing cricket at the highest level (on and off) for a fair amount more than half my entire life time. He’s not my favourite cricketer, and he’s a long way off from even being my favourite seamer. And if you asked a lot of people, they’d tell you the same thing.

When a cricketer ends his or her career being given the opportunity by the selectors to play at their home ground, in a T20 match, bowling the last over in a sure-fire winning cause, culminating in a lap of honour while being hoisted on their team-mates’ shoulders, there has to be something special about them.

What Ashish Nehra lacked in talent, luck or physical fitness, he more than made up for with sheer grit, determination and self-belief, pushing through the injuries with one comeback after another. The inconsequential India v New Zealand T20I at the Feroz Shah Kotla was the end of an era. The end of a career that was riddled with injuries and fraught with doubt about selection but optimistic to a fault. It was the working man’s career that had ridden the ups and downs of the gentleman’s game and had come out on top.

I'd like to wish "Nehraji" a wonderful time ahead, and thank him for all those occassions when we've had our hearts in our mouths while he bowled the last over defending less than ten, sometimes successful and sometimes not. To one of the greatest tryers that this wonderful game has seen. And isn’t that what sport is all about?