After practice, Ashish Nehra walks down the main MG Road, answering questions from passers-by who want to know if he really is the Indian cricketer or a lookalike. Flagging an autorickshaw, his ride to the hotel is interspersed with waves at those who recognise him at traffic junctions.

“I’m a simple man. I’ve sat in a Ferrari and I sit in a rickshaw. I eat at a five-star hotel and I eat by the roadside. I have friends who only drive around in Bentleys and friends who don’t even have a scooter,” he says.

The seamer, back in the Indian team for the recent West Indies ODIs after a good run in the IPL’s second season, is in Bangalore to escape Delhi rains in preparation for the Sri Lanka tri-series, but the showers have followed him here.

“People thought my comeback was grand because I wasn’t playing any cricket for a couple of years due of injury. The perception was that I couldn’t make a comeback at the age of 30. But in Indian cricket, you cannot write anyone off ever.

“It’s just a matter of grabbing your opportunities, and I did that. But Rahul Dravid’s comeback is much bigger than mine. People thought he didn’t have the game for T20, but he went to South Africa and batted well to return to the ODI team at the age of 36, pushing out Rohit Sharma.”

Nehra had bowled the quickest delivery by an Indian — before Ishant Sharma overtook him in Australia in 2008 — but he says his priorities are different now. “As you play more and more international cricket, you learn that you cannot always aim to be the quickest. Yes, I bowled 92 mph but that was six years ago, when I was 24.

... contd.