Nitish Kumar Reddy - all-rounder by chance and not choice

A reverse-sweep off the bat of Nitish Kumar Reddy traveled over the third man fence for six. And it sent the internet into a frenzy.

No, this wasn't an official, recognized game, but an intra-squad practice match featuring members of the SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) days before their IPL 2024 opener against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).

While the reverse-sweep went viral, so did Nitish's eventual score in the game - an unbeaten 56 off 26 balls. This just a couple of days after he walked out in the penultimate over of SRH's first warmup fixture and an unbeaten nine-ball 33 that saw him cart Bhuvneshwar Kumar around the park also made fans sit up and take note of a potential star this season.

All of 20, Nitish is one among the assembly line of fast-bowling all-rounders in the country seeking to burst in as the next big prospect in that department for India.

Inspired by a certain Hardik Pandya, Nitish, who enters IPL 2024 on the back of a fine season for Andhra in the Ranji Trophy, has the tools supplemented by incredible work ethic to cast his name into the limelight.

Yet, it's not as though he always aspired to be an all-rounder. It was something that was, in a way, thrust onto a lad who has an unparalleled love for batting to the extent that he wanted to give up bowling once. Over time though, he grew to accept both roles having seen the benefits of it.

"At one point of time, I was like, let's leave bowling. I really love batting," says Nitish in a candid chat with Sportskeeda a few days ahead of the start IPL 2024. "In age group cricket, I used to open. Eventually, what happened was my coach started sending me one down, two down or three down. I was going in later. The coach was thinking for the team because after bowling 20 overs, again coming and playing that opening is not that easy and I won’t recover. I just thought ‘let’s quit bowling and focus on batting’.

"At that time, I just called my coach Srinivas sir and spoke to him that I want to stop bowling and want to work on my batting. He gave me some really good advice at that time."

"He said ‘at this point, you are thinking like this, but in the future, you will get to know when you are in a bad phase with the bat and when you are not in form, your bowling will help you.’ That exact point helped me in last year’s Ranji Trophy. I didn't score much, I scored one fifty I guess in the whole season - 76 against Delhi. It was a bad season for me with the bat, but with the ball, I got 25 wickets. So that really helped me. What he told, the exact thing happened. So at that time, I thought, yeah, being an all-rounder is my kind. I must not lose this skill," says Nitish.

His love for batting is unmissable though when he looks back at his Ranji Trophy campaign where Andhra missed out on a semi-final berth by a whisker. Playing primarily as a bowling all-rounder who batted at number 7 or 8, he returned with 25 wickets at 18.76 apiece and tallied 366 runs at an average of 36.60.

Numbers that you'd think are highly impressive considering the quality of opposition that his team faced and the role that was handed out to him. But Nitish wasn't satiated.

"To be honest I was satisfied with my bowling, but I was not satisfied at all with my batting. For my ability, 366 runs are okay. I could have achieved more and scored more runs. So I was a bit disappointed with that. With my batting, I guess it was an okay-okay performance for me. I got only one hundred and one fifty. My aim for this season was to score two hundreds and play at least two match-winning knocks," declares Nitish.

In saying that, he does acknowledge the importance of his cameos with the bat that often bailed Andhra out of a perilous situation as he forged useful partnerships to steady the ship. Funnily enough, when asked to choose between his 5/64 against Mumbai and his 159 against Bihar in the Ranji Trophy, he opts for the former.

"That spell was great for me. The joy I got on that day was priceless. And I must say I enjoyed my bowling the most in the Madhya Pradesh match. The way we came back, the way we bowled and showed great attitude, I really liked that – the quarter-final in which I took four and three wickets."

Hard to argue with that - not after nipping Ajinkya Rahane and Shreyas Iyer in the bud in the Mumbai game and nearly creating history with his teammates in the quarter-final against Madhya Pradesh. As good a sign of any of how he has accepted his bowling responsibility with time.

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Perks of an early debut for Nitish Kumar Reddy

A few months shy of turning 17, Nitish was handed the new ball on first-class debut when Andhra faced Kerala at Ongole in the 2019-20 Ranji Trophy season. While he bowled just six overs in the first essay, he scored a solid 39 batting at 8 before bagging a wicket in the second innings.

Thrust into the main team that early, it only benefited him going forward by his own admission despite the early nerves, as it taught him to focus on the situation of the game at a particular point and on areas that needed fine-tuning.

"It was good for me that I debuted a little earlier than others because I got to know the difference between the Ranji Trophy and the age group level. I got to know that if I want to play the higher age groups, I have to improve certain particular parts of my game. After my debut, I just worked on that for two years. And now you can see results so the early debut really helped me," says Nitish.

The journey to this path came with a lot of sacrifices with his father playing the key protagonist in that pursuit. Forgoing his job to fulfill his son's dream having identified the potential in him, Nitish's father went all out even as, by his lad's own words, most parents at the time were skeptical about cricket as a career with the IPL still in its infancy.

"My father really supported me a lot. He left his job for me. The only person who first looked at my talent was my dad. He believed in me and he left his job for me when I was 11 or 12. He believed in that I will be playing at some level and that I have something in me. His priority was me only. He's been everywhere in my whole journey. The whole credit goes to my father and obviously my mother, but my father did a lot of work in the background," explains a grateful Nitish.

Over time, Nitish would prove his old man right. He created ripples with a triple-hundred and a score in excess of 400 at the U16 level, apart from a double-hundred against Karnataka in the same category. That insatiable hunger for runs was a natural trait, notwithstanding the many roles he had donned with the bat during his developmental years.

Juggling two roles with bat and ball has been tough. Even though Nitish has grown to accept the task of an all-rounder. But Nitish's desire to win matches for his team keeps him going.

"In practice sessions also, you need to manage your workload. Bowling and batting at a time is not that easy. I've been working on that from last two years. I spoke to Hardik Pandya and Ben Stokes - they are the world's best all-rounders, right? So I spoke to them. I got some valid points regarding recovery. It will be hard on us. But the thing is that always pushed me is we are the match-winners so we have to push our limits. So that's the thing that boosts me," says Nitish.

Nitish looks up to his countryman Hardik Pandya and seeks to emulate the superstar's skills as a game-changing all-rounder.

"The kind of athlete he is, the way he manages his batting and bowling (inspires me). I’d say we are similar. He bowls well and he bats well. He's not like a perfect bowler who can bat. He's not like a perfect batter who can bowl. He bowls well and he bats well. I have the same kind of ability. So I looked at him and I thought, yeah, we both are same. So why not have a chat with him and get some inputs," Nitish said when asked of his interaction with Pandya.

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Carpe Diem come what may - Nitish's philosophy

207/5 in pursuit of a first innings total of 409. 69/5. 137/6.

These were some of the entry points at which Nitish walked out to bat for Andhra in the recent Ranji Trophy campaign. Not all of them saw him post a big score although he did make critical contributions that played a massive part in bailing his team out of strife.

Yet, for a 20-year old to find himself in these circumstances against quality bowling units keeping the pressure on is not mean thing. Fronting up to the challenge and taking control of the game thereafter stems from a simple - yet at times, hard to execute - philosophy of staying in the moment. Even more so when there was a lot of white noise surrounding his team with controversy emerging hours after that heartbreaking quarter-final exit against Madhya Pradesh.

"I just keep it simple. You just need to focus on your things first. If you look at the crowd, if you look at the bowler, if you look at the fielder, you will be scared. You will be thinking out of the box. You just need to see the ball, analyse the situation and you need to play. That's what I think as a person, and I want to grow like that. I don't want to see who the bowler is, who the captain is, how big the crowd is. I just want to do what I can do and see what things can be done better," he elaborates.

Diving further into his approach when he walked out with the scorecard not wearing a pretty look, he said:

"In a day’s play, I just believe one thing - if the situation goes well for them, there will be a session that will be ours. So we need to be patient. We don't have to rush because weaare 70 for 5 or think that we have to attack now. I just keep it simple. Okay, this session went pretty well for them. And now I'm going to take this bowler on and I'm going to attack the next set of bowlers. We just planned according to that and we got results also. So that really helped me."

Staying in the moment and keeping things simple is a lesson Nitish learnt on IPL debut last year. Facing Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis in front of a boisterous Hyderabad crowd, it was a difficult game that was tougher on him as he dismissed du Plessis, only for the TV umpire to adjudge it as a no ball for height even as it looked touch and go.

The next game was even tougher if anything. A day game in the sweltering Mumbai heat with the Wankhede Stadium backing the Mumbai Indians (MI) to the hilt. Taking guard this time - Rohit Sharma.

Excellent variations in pace defined Nitish's spell this time around even as MI went all out on the attack in pursuit of 201. He nearly had a moment to savor when he induced a false shot off a full one with Rohit miscuing it. But a dropped catch brought an anticlimactic halt to what could have been a memorable first wicket.

Nitish only grew from those experiences and was quick to switch his focus back to the situation of the game in both matches he played.

"I was nervous bowling my first over. After bowling two balls, I thought, 'no, you're not going to be in this situation. You have to step out from this.' I thought 'let's go according to the plan. Don't see who is batting.' I guess at that time, Faf du Plessis and Virat were playing. They got a good partnership. So they were in an attacking mode. I thought to just stick to my best deliveries. That’s how I bowled. I didn't get a wicket but I felt happy that because I experienced that level and got to know like what I needed to improve and if my bowling was satisfactory to me or not.

"So it was good actually. Obviously I felt that pressure at the initial stage, but after some time, I just conquered that with more motivation," he says.

Today, he is a year wiser and enriched with further experience, more highs including a callup to India's Emerging Asia Cup squad and challenges that have only held him in better stead for a long journey ahead.

It helps of course that he has had the opportunity to rub shoulders with stalwarts of the game such as Dale Steyn (former SRH bowling coach) and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, while also having the chance now to get into the brains of World Cup-winning skipper Pat Cummins.

"They have pretty good experience. You can talk comfortably with Bhuvneshwar or Dale Steyn. They just tell me about the tactics, what needs to be done and what I have to be, what suits me.They never told anything out of the box. They just told me what I can do better and what I can do well in the match. I felt better speaking to Bhuvi bhai and Dale Steyn. There are a lot more players like Pat Cummins this year. He is more like an all-rounder and has been so successful in the last year. So I want to grab some experience from him too that will help me out."

The SunRisers Hyderabad have begun their IPL 2024 campaign in promising fashion, having so nearly won a thriller over Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) before trumping the Mumbai Indians (MI) in a manic run-fest. Their batters have blitzed in excess of 200 runs in both these games although their bowlers too, have shipped a lot of runs.

In this regard, you reckon there is an opportunity across departments for Nitish, who was named in the list of impact substitute options for both these games. An opportunity to embrace this cavalier batting approach that the team has adopted and one to also leave a mark with the ball and make an impact on batting-friendly surfaces.

The opportunity may not be far away for this precocious talent as the season rolls along. Considering how rapid his development has been, you wouldn't put it past him to ace this challenge and rise to the occasion.

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Nitish Kumar Reddy is managed by the talent management firm Square The One Sports.