NEWS
Follow UsNitish Kumar Reddy knows what Sunrisers Hyderabad wants from him and the 20-year-old is playing that required role to perfection in the Indian Premier League 2024.
He has been playing the role of a modern-day middle-order anchor. Someone who is not just there to hold the innings together in the middle overs but also scores at a good pace, something that Nitish has managed to execute successfully.
And what he did against Rajasthan Royals on April 2 (Thursday) was no different. SRH lost Abhishek Sharma and Anmolpreet Singh inside the first six overs and were operating around six runs per over. Nitish walked into bat in the final over of the powerplay and got off to a slow start.
Travis Head and Nitish took a couple of overs before finally breaking free in the ninth over. Head tonked Yuzvendra Chahal for two maximums and a four before Nitish got the better of R Ashwin and Avesh Khan in the next two overs. When he came face to face against Chahal in the 14th over, Nitish slammed him for 21 runs.
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He dominated the 96-run partnership he had with Head but once Heinrich Klaasen took over, Nitish took the back seat in the last couple of overs. He remained unbeaten on 76 off 42 - his highest score in T20s.
“From the last two matches, it has been like this. My role is to carry until the 14th or 13th over to give Heinrich Klaasen a license to bang. So there is no point if Klaasen and Samad get to bat in the early overs; they can’t score freely,” said Nitish.
“I was trying to build the innings and attack the one over. So exactly at the time I saw Yuzvendra Chahal coming, I had to go for Chahal, and that over went pretty well.”
In the second innings, Bhuvneshwar Kumar dismissed Jos Buttler and Sanju Samson in the first over but Yashasvi Jaiswal and Riyan Parag put on 133 runs for the third wicket to put RR in a commanding position.
However, the two were dismissed in the next three overs, and the equation got down to 13 off 6. Bhuvneshwar conceded 11 off the first five deliveries and then got Rovman Powell’s wicket on the final ball to help SRH win by just one run.
"When I saw that Bhuvneshwar was going to bowl, I got that confidence that he was going to pull it off...During his prime, he had done it so many times,” said Nitish.
Nitish only bowled one over in this match, going for 12 runs, but has bowled a couple of crucial spells in the previous games. He got the wicket of Jitesh Sharma against PBKS and then dismissed Tristan Stubbs and Rishabh Pant against Delhi Capitals.
“Last year, I was waiting for a batting opportunity, which I did not get, but I did get to bowl. I am a genuine all-rounder who can bat, ball and field. So I am looking forward to the all-round performance. I was waiting for this batting opportunity since last year. This year, management gave me a chance, and I don’t want to throw it away.”
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