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“Outside of cricket, nothing excites me. It is just cricket and my family. And that is the reason why I am pushing myself,” Nitish Kumar Reddy said, when asked about whether he has any hobbies outside of cricket. Somewhere it also tells you about how Nitish’s inner belief keeps motivating him to look for continuous improvement. Perhaps, there is a backstory connected to his sheer determination to succeed.
To delve deeper, we have to transport ourselves back to about a decade ago. When Nitish was around 11-12 years of age, his father, Mutyalu, was set to be transferred to Rajasthan. However, his father trusted his instincts and stepped down from his position at Hindustan Zinc Limited. The reason was to invest more time in Nitish’s cricketing career, especially against the backdrop of his son getting the opportunity to play at the district level. Unfortunately, for a while, things didn’t go according to plan.
“I started playing gully cricket, and then went to a summer camp,” Nitish told RevSportz. “He got transferred to Rajasthan. He had some discussion with his colleagues and they said, ‘oh, Rajasthan, this is not good, that is not good’. I was just 11 or 12 years old I guess. It was the early stage of my career, I had not played any league.
“So, at the time, he resigned from his job for me. It is something that I will remember for my life. He made the sacrifice for me. Of course, there were troubles. It was a government job, it was a big job at that time. He was humiliated by some people, relatives. He used to cry without letting me know. I took that as a motivation.”
Now, the ACA academy is 714.8 km away from his hometown in Vizag. But that didn’t deter Nitish from pursuing his ambition. It was at the academy, where he started to take up bowling seriously, under the tutelage of his coaches. “It was always about batting, I used to open the innings. So, bowling-wise, I used to swing a lot, inswing and outswing. I used to bat against the new ball and do some new-ball bowling. After some time, when I got into the academy, and then U-19 and U-23, I started to bowl more,” he said.
He had his struggles during the formative years of his career. After notching up more than 1,200 runs in the Vijay Merchant Trophy, he had a bit of a downward slide. Even at the senior level, Nitish didn’t get too many opportunities in the IPL 2023 and that was followed by the all-rounder suffering an ankle injury. Nitish, though, never gave up and it was the 2024 IPL that turned out to be a life-changing moment for him. His IPL season wasn’t just about the 303 runs he accumulated; it included game-changing contributions against Punjab Kings and Rajasthan Royals.
In other news:
Meet Dharambir and Pranav, India’s Paralympic club throw medalists, who credit Amit Saroha for paving the way in the sport and inspiring them to reach new heights.@LexygenGlobal @RohanDC98 @PCI_IN_Official #Paralympics pic.twitter.com/YEpTHrVgU3
— RevSportz Global (@RevSportzGlobal) September 6, 2024
In that IPL, Nitish also played under Pat Cummins; the man who had led Australia to World Cup and World Test Championship triumphs. Australia also retained the Ashes under him. “When it comes to Pat Cummins, before the start of the season, I was so excited to meet him because as a bowler doing captaincy is very hard and at that stage he had also won a World Cup for Australia. It tells you the kind of captain that he is. He is very cool and calm. He plays with the mind. He keeps telling me about my bowling as well. I really like him,” he observed.
With India looking for a back-up for Hardik Pandya, the selectors picked Nitish in the India squad for the Zimbabwe series. Just when his career looked all set to blossom, it was derailed by another setback – a groin injury. Nitish had this to say about missing out on the chance of playing for India.
“It was a heartbreaking moment, as every cricketer has that dream of playing for India. The news of me being selected became official and then you got the news of the injury, which really hurt me. Of course, for one or two days I was a bit down. Later on, I told to myself, ‘you have to take it positively’, at least I got some rest during the season to prepare well.”
His comeback from the injury didn’t go well either, as he was dismissed for a duck in the Duleep Trophy, done in by a peach from Akash Deep. But he didn’t brood over it. He has been banking on his mental strength.
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