Young all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy impressed one and ball with his batting exploits in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024/25, which India lost 1-3 to Australia.
Nitish returned with 298 runs in nine innings across five matches Down Under. The 21-year-old began his Test career with useful contributions of 41 and 38* at Perth. He followed it up with scores of 42 and 42 in Adelaide before hitting his maiden Test ton at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Recalling his memories from the tour, Nitish recently shared that he was wearing Virat Kohli’s shoes in the Boxing Day Test. The Andhra lad revealed that Kohli was asking for shoe sizes in the dressing room and upon matching with the star batter, he was gifted the pair.
“Back in the locker room, he (Kohli) once asked Sarfaraz (Khan), ‘Sarfu, tera size kya hai?’ (Sarfaraz, what’s your shoe size?), and he said, ‘Nine.’ Then he turned to me, and I thought, ‘Oh my god, I have to guess this correctly,’ because even if they weren’t my size, I really wanted his shoes. I said, ‘10,’ and he gave them to me. In the next match, I wore those shoes and scored a hundred!" said Reddy in a podcast on PUMA’s YouTube channel.
Reddy’s maiden Test ton left his father teary-eyed and it became one of the biggest viral moments during that tour.
Nitish said that his eyes were searching for his father, Mutyala, who was in the stands alongside his mother, sister, and uncle, among the 80,000-odd spectators. He also recalled getting congratulated by after his knock.
“Everyone in the dressing room came up and congratulated me, but I was just looking for one guy—hoping he’d come and talk to me.
“When Virat bhai (Kohli) finally walked up and told me I had played a wonderful game, that moment itself was special for me. I was also scanning the stands for my father but couldn’t find him. Later, I saw on the screen that he was crying.”
Nitish also narrated a hilarious moment from the Australia tour when his IPL teammate Travis Head tried to distract him with some playful sledging.
“Travis came up to me and said, ‘Nitish, where are you going to party tonight?’—knowing fully well that I wouldn’t.
“Then he went on, ‘Australia is such a great place. Melbourne is an amazing city, you have to go out and chill.’ He was just trying to distract me. I just told him, ‘Okay, Travis, one day we’ll both go and party!’ During another match, he was fielding at short leg and warned me, ‘Nitish, if you hit me, I’ll hit you when you bowl!’” he said.
Nitish Kumar Reddy will be next seen in action in the IPL 2025 season for Sunrisers Hyderabad. He spoke about how difficult it was to turn down other franchises in order to stay with a team he considers home.
“To be honest, I got some offers. But SRH is one team which I can really connect with. Like, it’s a home team for me. It feels like you’re representing your home team and want to make a wonderful impact in that team.
“I just want to perform well and bring that cup back to SRH, and they have shown absolute faith in me. I felt that it’s my time when I have to show faith and regive trust in me to them. Some conversations were going on to get me in the auction from other franchises. My answer was that I always wanted to play for SRH, but it was not an easy no to say to everyone.
“When I play for the team, whenever someone comes to talk to me in Telugu, they take me as kind of their own brother. Like, someone known to them is playing for their home team. Obviously, Orange Army, that thing is huge and they support really well. The number of people who come and support us in the stadium, it's massive. When those orange flags came in the Orange stadium, we really love that energy,” he remarked.
