'Why did you even play then?' - Ashish Nehra not happy with Virat Kohli's 'irrelevant ODIs' comment on New Zealand tour

Team India didn’t have a good New Zealand tour this year. After winning all the five T20Is, they were whitewashed in the subsequent ODI and Test series. Virat Kohli , after the ODI series, had claimed that One-Day cricket in 2020 has no relevance with the T20 World Cup set to be played. However, this statement hasn’t gone down well with Ashish Nehra.

India never looked comfortable during the three-match ODI series in the Kiwi nation. In the opening game, they failed to defend a mammoth total of 346 runs. In the must-win second match, the Men in Blue couldn’t chase down 273 and also went down meekly in the third and final game of the series.

Kohli clearly said during the series that the ODIs in the year 2020 are not relevant in comparison to T20Is and Tests. As per him, the T20 World Cup and World Test Championship was the main focus of his team. “I think Saini and Jadeja showed great character but as I said one-day cricket in this calendar year is not as relevant like T20Is and Tests,” Kohli had said at the post-match presentation after India lost the 2nd ODI.

I don’t agree with Virat Kohli’s statement, says Ashish Nehra

In a live interaction with Aakash Chopra, Ashish Nehra raised a question on the statement given by the Indian skipper. He said if the side had registered win in the ODI series then the Indian skipper can come out with such statements. As per Nehra, if that was the case then why Team India even played a 50-over series against New Zealand. The 41-year-old also wanted to know if Kohli was trying to say that the team never gave their best effort to win the ODI series.

“If you win and tell this it’s a different thing. It’s wrong to say that the year is for T20s and so we don’t care about 50-over matches…if it doesn’t matter then why did you even come to play. Are you trying to tell that the Indian team didn’t try to win those ODI matches against New Zealand? I don’t agree with Virat Kohli’s statement,” Nehra said in a live interaction with his former India teammate Aakash Chopra.