India’s veteran fast bowler Ashish Nehra said that watching the IPL final between his side Sunrisers Hyderabad and Royal Challengers Bangalore was more stressful than what would have been the case had he been playing in the showpiece match of the tournament, Mid-Day reported.
The 37-year-old, who has enjoyed a grand resurrection since his return to the national side after a gap of nearly four years, was in superb form during the recently concluded 2016 edition of the IPL as well, picking up nine wickets in eight matches at an average of 22.11 and an economy rate of 7.65.
However, his season was cut short when he suffered a high-grade tendon injury to his right knee during a league-stage encounter against Kings XI Punjab, thus ruling him out of the tournament.
Nevertheless, David Warner led his side to their maiden IPL triumph with a closely-fought victory against the star-studded RCB line-up in front of their home crowd at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. Nehra, who watched the final on TV with his wife Rushma and children Arush and Ariana at his in-laws’ house in London, shared his joy speaking to reporters minutes after the presentation ceremony on Sunday.
"I was positive throughout that we will win. I really missed being in Bangalore, but I'm happy that the boys managed to pull off a great win," Nehra said about SRH’s 8-run victory over RCB.
Speaking about how the match, which went into the final over of the innings despite SRH posting a mammoth total of 208 after winning the toss and electing to bat first, felt to him from a spectator’s point of view, Nehra said that he would have been more happy to be playing in the middle rather than watching the action from the comfort of his home.
“Watching the final on TV was very stressful. I'm less nervous when I am playing," he said.
Nehra, who commands widespread respect and affection from his teammates at SRH as seen from comments by Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who likened him to a mentor and Yuvraj Singh, who dedicated the team’s maiden IPL triumph to the left-arm pacer, underwent a successful knee operation last Tuesday in London, under the supervision of Dr. Andrew Williams, an orthopedic specialist.
He is likely to be on the sidelines for a considerable amount of time and it remains to be seen whether Nehra can script yet another fairytale comeback to the national team in the future.
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