Virat Kohli calling ODIs irrelevant in T20 World Cup year is 'wrong', feels former India pacer Ashish Nehra

Former India fast bowler Ashish Nehra disagreed with Virat Kohli’s on the Indian captain’s school of thought with respect to the outcome of ODI series being ‘irrelevant’ in a T20 World Cup year. Reacting after India’s 3-0 drubbing in the ODI series during their tour of New Zealand in February, Kohli had said that the outcome of the series didn’t hold much weight since one-day cricket wasn’t as relevant as T20Is and Tests in 2020. Nehra, who played his last international match in 2017 under Kohli’s captaincy and was later the bowling coach of the IPL franchise, Royal Challengers Bangalore, a team that Kohli leads, said in an online chat with cricketer-turned-commentator Aakash Chopra. “I feel it’s wrong to say it’s a T20 year and the 50-over format doesn’t matter,” Nehra said, “If it doesn’t matter then why are you playing it? Are you telling me that the Indian team didn’t try to win those matches against New Zealand?” Nehra, who was part of India’s 2011 world cup winning team, added that the current Indian team was “chopping and changing too much”.

“I feel in the last two years, the team management has tried to keep the players on their toes a bit too much. While, it’s necessary to keep a player on his toes if you feel he is lagging behind, but there’s been too much chopping and changing in the last two years and that doesn’t help,” Nehra said. “You don’t know who will bat a No 5 and 6. KL Rahul is playing there and the man you prepared to take MS Dhoni’s place, Rishabh Pant, is ferrying drinks. There is a lot of talent in this team but they need to be backed for a longer time,” he added. As for the ongoing debate over banning the use of saliva and sweat for shining the ball, due to the health risks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, Nehra said that any change which is brought in by the ICC should be thought through, by weighing its risks and benefits. “We don’t know how the ball will behave if we use vaseline or anything else. It might happen that the ball will not swing or it will swing too much. So there should be no rush to resume cricket and all changes should be thought out.”