Nitish Reddy: The problem and solution
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The second ball Nitish Kumar Reddy faced, Australia had already made a change. They were well on top, and were more worried about any weather on the drop-in pitch making it hard to get the remaining 14 wickets. But when the young Indian number eight came in, they made a change.
Scott Boland was bowling, and he had three wickets already, and was at his MCG. Yet, Alex Carey came up to the stumps.
They know that while Boland has a psychological hold on the rest of the Indian batters, Nitish just wanders down the wicket and ruins his length. Despite the fact that Australia were ahead and that Boland gets a lot of caught behinds, Carey comes up to the stumps, making his catches far less likely. Nitish was in their heads, before he made a run.
But while he has caused problems for Australia, he has done the same for India. He’s a lower order player who really hasn’t shown much with the ball. He made his debut playing as the fourth seamer and batting at number eight.
Him making runs actually caused India issues with their selection. In some ways Reddy has been the problem, in others, the solution.
India were in trouble when Nitish faced his first ball in Tests. They were 73/6, and after everything that had proceeded against New Zealand, it felt like all hope was lost. He more than doubled their score from there, and his 41 didn’t seem that important at that moment. When Australia were all out, his innings looked like the best knock of the entire first innings. In the second he added another 38*, with plenty of hitting in it as well.
The issue was that he only bowled seven overs, getting the one lucky wicket through a Mitchell Marsh drag-on. It was clear his bowling was little more than handy, so he created the Ashton Agar Conundrum.
In the 2013 Ashes, Australia weirdly decided to drop Nathan Lyon for the debutant Ashton Agar. It was a weird call, as Lyon had taken a bag against India in the previous match. Agar batted at number 11, and went on to break the world record in that position. He struck the ball so purely, and almost never stopped smiling which ended on the front page of the UK newspapers.
But he didn’t bowl well, even if Stuart Broad made it look worse than it was. It would have made perfect sense for Australia to drop him and bring back Lyon. But how do you do that for a guy who scored 98 and could be a great number eight—perhaps even moonlight at seven?
Agar took no wickets and scored barely any runs in the following match. Australia were two nil down.
Australia took a huge swing on Agar because they loved his upside. He was a great athlete who could bowl, bat and field. When he made runs, they just had to keep him in the side. But he was not the spinner for English wickets, and as a prospect, he never panned out.
Teams take huge swings on allrounders. But how they develop is usually more of a mystery compared to a specialist. Being good at two things means you spend less time working on each, and if you’re a younger player, you are also in development. Nitish Reddy is a really exciting player. But he's probably going to end up being very different from what he started as—a bowler who was a handy number eight.
We know that because he was already a number seven by the second Test. Part of this was trying to fit R Ashwin in the side, but like Agar, he’d been promoted for the runs he made in the first Test. Unlike Agar, he made them again.
Coming in to bat at 87/5, he took them to 180, with another score in the 40s. Again, India failed in the first innings. He looked very good, dragging them to a respectable score. But this time, it was not really enough.
He did chip in with another wicket, but again it was a poor ball. At that stage, Australia were trailing by only 12 runs, with six wickets in hand.
In the second innings, India collapsed again, and you will not believe this, but Nitish made another 40-odd. His scores in Tests were now 41, 38, 42 and 42. He’d either created a glass ceiling for himself, or he truly believed that the number 42 was the meaning of life.
But India could not drop him now.
