Nitish Kumar Reddy produced an eye-catching performance to play a prominent role in Sunrisers Hyderabad’s first win of IPL 2026 as they crushed Kolkata Knight Riders by 65 runs on Thursday night. Reddy scored 24-ball 39 in SRH’s total of 226/8 and then took 2/17 from two overs to win player-of-the-match award at Eden Gardens. And he noted the contribution of a ‘specific person’ in helping him regain his rhythm after a challenging, injury-hit period, though he chose to keep the individual’s identity a secret, for now.
Reddy has been earmarked as a potential successor to India’s leading pace-bowling all-rounder Hardik Pandya. However, he has struggled with recurring fitness issues over the past year, which stalled his progress.
The 22-year-old suffered
multiple fitness setbacks, including a neck spasm and a left quadriceps injury in 2025, causing him to miss crucial matches ahead of the 2026 T20 World Cup.
Acknowledging the impact of injuries on his development, Reddy said, “It’s always been a point that I wanted to work on my bowling, but it’s just the injuries which I have gone through last year, I was not pretty sure that I didn’t get the time to work on myself.”
“But thankfully, I got a little bit of time for myself before the season and yeah, I did pretty good in one week training with a specific person. So, that really helped and makes sense whatever he had said to me. So, it’s going good now,” he added.
When probed on that mysterious person, the allrounder smiled and said, “I will do that later on.”
Reddy came in to bat after SRH’s innings wobbled a bit with the scorecard reading 118/4. He then put together a solid 82-run partnership for the sixth wicket with Heinrich Klaasen (52), stabilising the innings after a strong start from openers Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma.
With the ball, Reddy bowled the 12th and 14th overs and picked up two key wickets, including that of Rinku Singh with a slower ball which he refers to as one of his “strengths”.
“It’s just when I batted, I honestly thought that wicket is a bit too paced because when bowlers try to bowl slow bouncers, sometimes it’s sticking and sometimes it’s just rushing to the batsman. So, I thought why not give it a try for the slower ones and that’s what I actually did and I got Rinku’s wicket because it actually rushed to the bat and that’s when I got the edge. It’s just one of my strengths, the slower one. So, I just utilised that one,” he said.
Reddy also praised SRH’s tactical adjustments, highlighting how the team brought in spin early when the pacers proved expensive in the powerplay.
“Because KKR bowlers who have bowled the seamers just leaked a little bit of runs in the opening 6 overs, so, we thought why not spinners? The wicket is too paced and we thought that if it grips a little bit for the spinners, it will go well and you can see Harsh got the wicket of Finn Allen. So, that’s what the process has been. You have to respect the conditions, and you have to change your plans according to the wicket. So, that’s what Ishan has done,” he added.
