Ashish Nehra, the former Indian cricketer, has now become a cricket commentator and pundit. He is known for his outspoken statements, where he never shies away from calling a spade a spade. Recently, he slammed the Indian skipper for his statements on ODI cricket after team India was defeated by the hands of the New Zealanders.
Well, team India had won the T20i series but went on to lose both the ODI and Test matches during the New Zealand tour this year. After the New Zealand cricket team completely whitewashed the Indian cricket team with 0-3, Virat Kohli had said that this year ODIs don’t matter this year. He had said:
“…as I said one-day cricket in this calendar year is not as relevant like T20Is and Tests,”
Now, during a conversation with Aakash Chopra on his show, AakashVaani slammed Virat Kohli for saying that ODIs don’t matter this year. Ashish Nehra feels it wasn’t right on Virat Kohli’s part to say after losing a series. He said:
“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,”
Ashish Nehra also talked about the captaincy of Virat Kohli and feels that it is still a work in progress. He also called Kohli an ‘impulsive’ captain. He said:
“Virat Kohli as a player needs no recognition as his career graph tells the entire story. Kohli as a player has done amazingly well, in captaincy I still feel he is a work in progress. I can say he is a little bit impulsive captain,”
Furthermore, Ashish Nehra also claimed that the current Indian cricket team is nowhere close to the Australian cricket team of the first decade of the 2000s. He said:
“This Indian team is far from the Australia team. You are talking about an Australian team which won 3 consecutive World Cups, reached the final in 1996, won 18-19 Test matches in home and away conditions. It’s not like this Indian team can not reach there but I believe the core group is very important. A person gets confused after watching many dishes on the table and so it’s important to have fewer but better dishes,”
