The 20-year-old Nitish Kumar Reddy is doing admirably in the 2024 Indian Premier League (IPL), exactly how his team, Sunrisers Hyderabad, expects him to.

According to Nitish, his job is to help the team recover from early wickets and continue batting till the 13th and 14th overs without losing any more wickets. Then Heinrich Klaasen and Abdul Samad may smash from the first ball.

Yesterday in the match, the winning side, SRH, decided to bat first. The innings gained steam as opener Travis Head and all-rounder Nitish Reddy put up 96 runs off of a third-wicket stand after getting off to a sluggish start. Heinrich Klaasen superbly supported Nitish, who scored 76* off of 42 balls with three fours and eight sixes, as SRH reached 201/3 in their 20 overs. Klaasen recovered from a short slump in form to make 42 off 19 balls with three fours and three sixes. Later, Rajasthan Royals were able to score 200 runs and SRH won the match by 1 run.

“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.

“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.”

Nitish also praises pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar who took Rovman Powell’s wicket in the last ball to win the match for SRH. "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,” added Nitish.