New Delhi: Indian pacer Ashish Nehra on Wednesday became the first left-arm bowler to scalp 100 wickets in the Indian Premier League (IPL) when he bowled out Sreenath Aravind for a duck in the season's opener – Sunrisers Hyderabad versus Royal Challengers Bangalore.
For the 37-year-old, it was his last over in the innings. After two good deliveries, Nehra got the better of RCB's newly appointed captain Shane Watson, who tried to bank on the full toss delivery. But the Aussie, instead, got a leading edge which was comfortably taken by Moises Henriques in the mid-wicket region. However, Nehra's story didn't end there.
Sreenath Aravind walked in next with a hope to create a difference. But all was sent packing back to the pavilion by Nehra when the ball zipped past his bat to strike of the leg stump. And with that the Delhi-based pacer created an IPL record of being the first left-arm bowler to take 100 wickets. Not only that, he also the oldest bowler to do so.
Although standing eighth in the overall list, Nehra achieved his feat in just 83 matches. This put him along side Sri Lankan pacer Lasith Malinga, who has scalped 143 wickets in 98 IPL matches. Others on the list are — Amit Mishra (124 wickets), Dwayne Bravo (122 wickets), Piyush Chawla (120 wickets), Harbhajan Singh (119 wickets), R Vinay Kumar (101 wickets) and Ravichandran Ashwin (100 wickets).
Ahead of IPL kick-off, the pacer had said in an interview that it wasn't easy to bowl fast given his age. But it seems the 37-year-old has proved himself wrong with those impressive two deliveries.
Apart from that, his team Sunrisers Hyderabd got off to a scintillating start to their title defense when they defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore by 35 runs.
RCB stepped onto the field with anxiousness given the absence of their key players Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers. But their sloppy fielding added on their misery as Yuvraj Singh and Moises Henriques' brilliant innings gave the champions all three points.
