Nitish Kumar Reddy: 'I told myself I'm going to develop that no-defeat attitude'

The Sunrisers Hyderabad allrounder talks about fighting early disappointment and doubts to become a breakout star

23-Jul-2024

Nitish Kumar Reddy removes his helmet, Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Rajasthan Royals, IPL 2024, Hyderabad, May 2, 2024

Nitish Kumar Reddy's eyes welled up when he received his first India kit last month. He immediately rang his father in Visakhapatnam to tell him he had been selected in India's T20I squad to tour Zimbabwe.

The 21-year-old was fast-tracked into the national squad on the back of his IPL performance for Sunrisers Hyderabad this year: he scored 303 runs in 11 innings, mostly in the middle order, at a strike rate of 143, and picked up three wickets with his lively seam-ups.

But the highs of Reddy's selection dissipated quickly when a sports hernia ruled him out of the tour. Reddy is now working his way back to full fitness ahead of the new domestic season that kicks off with the Duleep Trophy on September 5.

"Fame is a funny thing," Reddy says during our hour-long meeting in Bengaluru. "After the IPL, the same people who told my father how he was foolish to risk his career for me started praising him for his foresight. I remembered they got emotional when my India kit arrived."

In 2016, when Reddy was 13, his father, Mutyalu, who worked with Hindustan Zinc Limited in Visakhapatnam, was to be transferred to Jodhpur in Rajasthan. But instead Mutyalu decided to quit to focus his efforts on his son, who had just been picked by the Andhra Cricket Association (ACA) at a district trials.

"He quit and invested the corpus he received into a microfinance business in Vizag [Visakhapatnam]," Reddy says. "But unfortunately, when the business didn't do well, our own extended family, society - everyone started taunting him for his decision. As much as he tried not to let that filter through to me, eventually he couldn't help it.

"I saw how people's attitude towards him changed from when he had a job to after he quit. They would disrespect him, he'd be ignored.

"I couldn't take it. That spurred my motivation to give it my all, because my father had given up everything for me. Until then, I'd played for fun, but from there on, everything changed."

The 13-year-old left home comforts to move 700km away to join ACA's residential academy in Kadapa, where he trained twice daily and attended middle school. He learned the basics of fast bowling under local coaches there.

"Until I joined the academy, I was only a batter, my bowling was no good - I would throw," he says with a laugh. "Only after I began regular training, I understood biomechanics, how your action impacts different parts of your body, and I worked on correcting it."

Reddy first made waves in the Under-16 Vijay Merchant Trophy when he scored a triple-hundred against Tamil Nadu, 190 against a strong Karnataka attack, and a quadruple against Nagaland, finishing the 2017-18 tournament with a record 1237 runs.

But the record-breaking run turned out to be a false dawn. He admits he got "carried away" by the early success.

"I thought I'm naturally good. Everyone spoke highly about my technique, and I was flying. The following year, when I graduated to U-19s and flopped, I initially brushed it aside thinking it was a bad patch. But when I had a second bad season, it gave me a reality check."

Early in 2019, frustrated by his failures, Reddy decided he wanted to go all in as a batter. "I thought giving up bowling will free me up to focus and excel in just one discipline."

But one of his coaches, Srinivas Reddy, managed to dissuade him from giving up on bowling.

"One evening, I called the coach and said my batting is going down, from opening, I'm now batting at No. 4, sometimes even lower. Sometimes I'm being only played as a bowler, which I don't like. I want to fully focus on being an opener.

"He sat me down and made me understand how I may have not even got those chances in the second year of U-19s had it not been for my bowling, because I was hardly scoring runs. He drilled into me how fast-bowling allrounders are rare and it would be very silly of me to give it up at this point just because I had one bad season."

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Around then, Reddy was picked for a camp organised by the ACA for the pool of players to be picked for the 2019-20 domestic season.

"I was initially picked as an understudy in the larger squad," Reddy says. "That's when I met [Andhra captain] Hanuma Vihari. "He was impressed and pushed for me to get a chance, and I made my Ranji debut, against Kerala [in January 2020]. I quickly understood that if in age-group I got two loose balls in an over, in first-class, I'd get two in a session. I learnt a lot quickly."

Reddy was first picked by Sunrisers ahead of the 2023 IPL but got to play only two matches that season. In July last year, he earned a call-up to the India Emerging squad for the Asia Cup in Sri Lanka. He hoped it would be his giant leap into the mainstream, but it wasn't to be - he didn't get to bat in any of his three games.

"I was batting well, but my bowling was coming along better [ahead of the 2023 IPL]. SRH management asked me to be ready, but somehow, I couldn't fit into the squad. When I finally got a chance towards the end of the season, I didn't [get to] bat in my two games.

"At the Asia Cup too, when I was in the XI, our top order did so well that I couldn't get a chance in the first three games. In the fourth game, when I was left out, everyone batted. It was on live TV, it stressed me out quite a lot that I missed a chance. I wondered if Sunrisers would even retain me."

He faced another setback when an ankle injury in September ruled him out of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, which functions as a barometer for form and fitness ahead of the IPL. He was "so dejected that I didn't even go to the ground for three or four days at a stretch", even when he regained his fitness.

"Then one day, I just called up ACA and requested them to help arrange a few side-armers who would hurl the ball [to me] at 140 clicks from 18 yards. I didn't want anyone to tell me I'm a lower-order batter. I wanted to show I have it in me to bat in the top order.

"They bowled bouncers. I got hit everywhere initially, but I told myself: come what may, I'm going to face up and fight, build character and develop that no-defeat attitude. I continued this routine whenever I was training back home. That's perhaps why coming into IPL 2024, I felt so confident playing proper pace. In the nets when Pat Cummins saw me react to pace, he was very impressed."

Reddy didn't make it to the XI in the first three matches of the 2024 IPL, but when he got his opportunity, at home against Chennai Super Kings - as a replacement for Mayank Agarwal, who was ruled out with a fever - he made 14 not out off eight balls from No. 6. In the next game, against Punjab Kings, SRH stuck with Reddy even though Agarwal was ruled fit, and Reddy responded with 64 off 37 balls from No. 4 to lift Sunrisers from 64 for 4 to 182.

Outside cricket, Reddy enjoys playing video games. His eyes light up when he talks about PubG, the last-man standing multi-player game. "It helps me de-stress. It's my go-to game."

He is also focusing on finishing his Bachelor of Arts degree, but the primary goal remains making it to the national team.

"It'll be emotional whenever I play, but for that I have to put in the work. Playing for India will be the biggest thing for my family.

"My ultimate goal is to be the best allrounder in the world. I have that belief. It's just about staying true to my game and being humble."

Nitish Kumar Reddy Andhra Sunrisers Hyderabad India

Shashank Kishore is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo