Ashish Nehra finds himself in the limelight with a brilliant effort of fast bowling on the opening day in the first Test match against Zimbabwe played at Bulawayo. Nehra bowled with a lot of fire and determination to finish with the analysis of 12-1-23-3. He is our Top Performer of the first day.

The 22-year-old left-arm pacer from Delhi made his debut for India, in the Asian Test Championship against Sri Lanka a couple of years ago. He has been a consistent performer and was called back into the Indian Test squad for the now famous Kolkata Test match against Australia. Nehra must have felt crestfallen after being left on the bench and having to miss out on the crucial Ranji Trophy encounter against Tamil Nadu, which Delhi lost, bringing early curtains on his season.

The selectors did not let the young fast bowler down and they picked him for the tour of Zimbabwe. Indian captain Saurav Ganguly too backed his ability and Nehra found himself in the team replacing Ajit Agarkar. The pressure must have been immense on this young man as he shared the new ball with India's senior fast bowler Javagal Srinath.

Nehra started off brilliantly, relishing on the opportunity to bowl on a lively pitch, much unlike the kind of tracks in India. He generated good pace and had the opening batsmen in a lot of trouble. His ability to move the ball off the seam either way, bowling left-arm over the stumps was always going to be an asset.

It was a pleasing sight to see Nehra getting the ball to move in late and rap the batsman on the pads. Dion Ebrahim in particular had no clue about how to deal with the late movement and was time and again saved by the bounce of the ball as he found himself hit on the pads than on the bat.

Nehra got into the act in his third over of the day, when Guy Whittall dragged a full-length ball onto his stumps. Nehra was brought back into the attack when Andy Flower was threatening to take apart the Indian bowling. Flower had just completed a quickfire fifty when Nehra claimed his wicket. He got the ball to move away a shade, making Flower to top-edge an easy catch to SS Das in the covers. In his following over Nehra trapped Andy Blignaut in front of the wicket to send the Zimbabwe innings on a tailspin.

On a day when Srinath and Zaheer Khan failed to impress, Nehra took the honours with a superior effort. He bowled with a lot of discipline and determination to add to the pace and variety, which he possesses in his armour. Nehra could well play a crucial hand in the second innings as India seeks a much-awaited away Test win.