I have never been bothered by criticism: Ashish Nehra

The left-arm pacer Ashish Nehra has cleared that he is never bothered about the criticism and loves to perform on the field. He is ready for yet another international comeback at the age of 38 after being picked by the selectors in the Indian squad for the 3-match T20I series against Australia. India has won the recently concluded One-Day series by 4-1 against the same team. Along with Nehra, Dinesh Karthik also made his return to the side who was with the ODI team during the Champions Trophy and in Windies.

However, the fans were not pleased at all with his return and questioned his fitness on social media website Twitter. Moreover, the exclusion of Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina made them fume over the selectors. But Nehra faced the flak unnecessarily as he has performed whenever the opportunity has been presented to him.

I don’t even know what people say about me

Ashish Nehra last donned India colours in the series against England and suffered an injury during the Indian Premier League (IPL) which kept him away from cricket. “Who isn’t happy if he is playing for India? I have never been bothered by criticism. The Indian dressing room knows what I bring to the table. The skipper knows it, the selectors know it. If I am in the team, definitely, I must be contributing something,” Nehra said as quoted by Times of India.

When asked about his targets, he replied, “At my age, you don’t set long term goals. I have been selected to play three games for India. I will take one game at a time. Waise bhi Ashish Nehra accha karega toh bhi news hai, accha nahi karega toh woh aur bhi badi news hain (If I do well, that’s news, if I don’t do well, that’s even bigger news).”

However, he claimed that he doesn’t know what people say about him on Twitter and broke into a laughter. “I don’t even know what people say about me on Twitter. Now people may have a notion that since I am not visible on social media and now that I am in the team, where was I during the period. Well, I was religiously following my training schedule, working on my fitness, doing my bowling routines. Things you actually do to make a comeback,” he added. Nehra also explained the reason of him clicking 140 kph at the age of 38.

“If you look at me, I have been playing T20s for quite some time now. With my action, which is not the smoothest, I cannot bowl at 80 per cent when all I have is 24 balls in a match. Another aspect is that, this is my action which has helped me generate the kind of pace I do at this age,” Nehraji concluded with a smile on his face as usual.