Ashish Nehra

Ashish Nehra is a left arm medium fast bowler and a right handed batsman with the Indian cricket team. He has played for the Asia XI, Mumbai Indians and Delhi cricket teams. Presently, he has been retained by the Pune Warriors team to play at the IPL 5 season 2012.

Nehra has been playing first class cricket since, 1997. He made his debut in International cricket in a test match against Sri Lanka at Colombo in 1999. Nehra bowled 28 overs and claimed the wicket of Marvan Atapattu in the first innings giving away just 94 runs. The match ended in a draw. In 2001, Nehra made his One day International debut in a match against Zimbabwe at Harare. Nehra opened the bowling attack and claimed 2 wickets giving away just 33 runs in the 10 overs that he bowled. He picked up his first ODI wicket in this match in the second ball by dismissing Alistair Campbell. India won the match by 9 wickets.

In the 2003 World Cup, in a match against England he picked up 6 wickets for 23 runs which is his career best in One day Internationals’. He continued his better performances throughout the World Cup. He is the only bowler who has bowled the fastest ball from the Indian Side. But his pace dropped considerably with his form. Subsequent ankle and back injuries have troubled Nehra throughout his career.

In 2007, Nehra was signed by the Mumbai Indians of the Indian Premier League. He was awarded the Man of the Match in a game against the Rajasthan Royals for claiming 3 wickets and giving away just 13 runs in the 3 overs he bowled. For the next season of 2009 and 2010 Nehra has played for the Delhi DareDevils. His performance with the team has been average. The Pune Warriors have picked him for this IPL 2011 hoping for some spectacular performances with the ball. Currently he is playing the Cricket World Cup 2011 for the Indian Team.

In a total of 17 test matches, Nehra has claimed 44 wickets at an economy of 3.24 runs per over. He also has a total of 157 wickets in 120 One day international matches with an economy of 5.19 runs per over.

Career Highlights

Nehra was awarded with the title of the Man of the Match, against Rajasthan Royals, 2008.