Nitish Kumar Reddy is having the sort of season that rarely makes headlines yet regularly changes matches. Sunrisers Hyderabad’s top four – Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan and Heinrich Klaasen – have bludgeoned 1739 runs, grabbing most of the praise. Reddy, patrolling the middle order and chipping in with the ball, is simply making the whole thing work.
“The team functions better when they have an allrounder who’s being able to contribute both with bat and ball,” assistant coach James Franklin reminded reporters after SRH beat Punjab Kings by 33 runs to return to the top of the table. His point is hard to dispute.
Key numbers first. Reddy has 222 runs at a strike rate of 166.91, almost all of them after the powerplay when bowlers start mixing slower balls and wide yorkers. On Wednesday night he thumped 29* from 13 deliveries; earlier in the tournament he made 56 off 33 against Lucknow Super Giants, dragging SRH from 11 for 3 to respectability alongside Klaasen.
With the ball he owns seven wickets. Yes, the economy rate sits at 10.39 – hardly miserly – but context matters. This has been a high-scoring IPL and Reddy has been used mainly in powerplays or at frantic finishes, moments when even specialist quicks struggle to keep runs down.
Franklin believes subtle improvements have helped. “He’s confident. He’s playing really well with the bat, he’s coming in and showing great intent as soon as he comes out. And then the bowler as well – he’s probably just managed to [get his] pace up a little bit this season, he’s swinging the new ball when he’s getting the opportunity to bowl in the powerplay, and he’s creating opportunities,” he said.
Those extra kilometres per hour are no accident. Behind the scenes the franchise has been running what support staff jokingly call “Project NKR”. Reddy has spent hours with Steffan Jones – the former Derbyshire seamer turned high-performance coach – focusing on strength, run-up rhythm and wrist position. The stated aim is simple: “develop Reddy into one of the best allrounders in the world”. He is already touching 140 kph more often, and the wrist-position tweak has generated late inswing that removed Sanju Samson and Ayush Mhatre inside the powerplay against Chennai Super Kings. A week later he dismissed Will Jacks just when Royal Challengers were flying at 93 without loss.
Deep Dasgupta, speaking on ESPNcricinfo’s TimeOut show, called Reddy the “only proper allrounder” in a tournament supposedly hostile to the breed because of the impact-player regulation. He expanded: “That’s a very valid point – how we perceive the impact [of the allrounder]. I mean that is changing and I hope that keeps changing and next season it gets… the role of the allrounder is recognised more as we go forward.”
So far, Reddy has indeed “found a niche”, using the rule rather than being sidelined by it. Sunrisers frequently start with an extra batter, knowing that if early wickets tumble they can hold Reddy back as an impact substitute, or alternatively deploy him with the new ball if conditions demand swing.
There are caveats. He is still learning which variations to trust at the death, and on slower pitches his short ball can sit up. Likewise, the batting returns, while explosive, are built on a small sample. Yet the signs are undeniably positive. In an era when franchises often separate batting and bowling skills, Reddy remains a persuasive argument for the genuine all-round cricketer.
The next fortnight, with Sunrisers chasing a top-two finish, should tell us more. Knockout cricket has a way of exposing weak links or cementing reputations. For the moment, though, a young man working in the shadow of big-name six-hitters is quietly stitching this line-up together – and reminding coaches across the league why balance still matters as much as firepower.
