Nehra’s Retirement Match Could Be a Lesson For Future Generations

The audience reserves special appreciation for a support cast that ends its part well & exits the stage gracefully.

For an international cricketer who wasn’t a regular in the Indian team (he did not get a single game in eight of his eighteen playing years), registered his career best figures nearly fifteen years ago (before any of his current team mates had even made their international debuts) and finished with a middling record; Ashish Nehra received a remarkably warm retirement send-off from Indian cricket fans a few days ago. So, how did Nehra surpass several more celebrated names from Indian cricket in this respect?

For one, there is the very act of participation in a farewell game. Not everyone gets the opportunity. A farewell game is the last chance for a player to display his wares, and for the audience, whether in-stadia or at homes, to savour the display; the finality of it all – the realization within both performer and spectator that the act will never be the same again – imbues the occasion with extra emotion. And that, in part, explains the positive buzz Nehra saw.

Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman’s final adieus would have been more evocative had they reached denouement in the playing arena, not in press conferences where they actually forsook farewell games.

Then, there are others – Ravi Shastri and Virender Sehwag come to mind instantly –whose retirement announcements came after they had fallen out of favour with selectors, and who did not have the option of a farewell game in the first place.

Dravid, Laxman, Shastri or Sehwag’s stature or popularity does not diminish because they did not get a farewell game, but wouldn’t a farewell game have added to the memories they left behind?

The circumstances surrounding Nehra’s final game have been heart-warming too –and rather different from others. Unlike Kapil Dev, there was no quest for a long awaited world record behind his retirement timing.

Unlike Sourav Ganguly, there has been no speculation that his selection was conditional on a retirement announcement; and, unlike Sachin Tendulkar, there has been none of the strained choreography of an unscheduled series to permit a last hurrah on home ground.

It appears as if Nehra thought he had had enough and just wanted the satisfaction of saying his bye-byes on home ground. The contrast with the negotiated exits Indian cricketing royalty has insisted on – and pretty much gotten away with – has not gone unnoticed by followers of Indian cricket.

Lastly, there is something to be said about the high notes Nehra has strung in his twilight years, albeit exclusively in the T20 format, and how it has helped him connect with present day audiences.

To the T20-enamored generation, he has been a quirky charmer – a toothy, gangly character making his presence felt in what is supposed to be a young man’s format. Much like a sporting uncle who wins the youngsters in the family with some surprisingly cool dance floor moves.

Meanwhile, more seasoned watchers have been left wondering if they were perhaps a little too harsh in dissing Nehra all these years for his fitness, inconsistency and clumsy batting and fielding. Their recently-discovered respect for Nehra is a bit of an apology, a correction for past unfairness.

It is unlikely anyone sees Nehra as irreplaceable and his retirement as the end of an era. However, this workmanlike cricketer’s handling of his retirement may have a lesson to offer to future generations, cricketers and non-cricketers alike.

That the audience reserves special appreciation for a support cast that ends its part well and exits the stage gracefully.

(Manish Dubey is a policy analyst and political columnist. His second work of fiction, a novella titled 'A Murderous Family' has recently been released by Juggernaut Books. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

Also Read: How Ashish Nehra Got to Decide His Retirement Match

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