IPL 2024: Pat Cummins Terms Nitish Reddy’s Performance as Amazing After Win Against PBKS

SRH vs PBKS, IPL 2024: Sunrisers Hyderabad pacer Nitish Reddy ended up upholding a heroic al-rounder performance against Punjab Kings in the 23rd match of the IPL 2024 at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium in Mullanpur on Tuesday, April 9.

Nitish first came up with a massive contribution of 64 runs with the bat in just 37 balls, helping his side to recover from 64/4 and reach a match-winning total of 182/9.

Nitish hit 4 boundaries and 5 sixes in his impactful knock before taking up the responsibility with the ball. After SRH secured a win over Punjab Kings by just 2 runs skipper Pat Cummins appreciated Nitish’s performance.

“He was awesome,” Cummins said. “Straight to the top of the order, was fantastic in the field, bowled three overs too. To get us to 180 off his bat, it was amazing.”

“They bowled well at the beginning, we did well to get to 182 and then defended it. The beauty of the impact player is that you feel you have deep batting. We try to be positive, to take the game on, he added.

“You get 150-160, you are going to lose 9 out of 10 games anyway. We knew the new ball was going to be a key time. We were happy with our score,” said the captain.

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SRH posted a challenging score of 182/9 in their 20 overs. When talking about the planning to defend it, the skipper said: “Saw what happened with the new ball for them, so thought if me and Bhuvi could start off with a wicket. “We have plenty of left-armers, right-armers, so just trying to give the bowlers the best chance of success.”

Nitish who picked the crucial wicket of Jitesh Sharma at the crucial time recalled his exchanges with the skipper.

Belief with the bat 💪
Confidence with the ball 🙌
Backing from the Captain 🤝@SunRisers‘ rising star, Nitish Kumar Reddy, recaps his memorable all-round performance from Mullanpur 🙌🧡 – By @NishadPaiVaidya#TATAIPL | #PBKSvSRHhttps://t.co/7XNMg6Nj9i

— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) April 10, 2024

“I was always confident of my bowling. The wicket I picked was crucial; I told Pat that I wanted to bowl a slower bouncer. He said ‘It’s not that necessary, you can try to hit hard lengths’. Next, I said to Pat that I was confident of the slower bouncer. He said, ‘If you are so confident, then go’. He gave me a free hand, and it worked well,” Nitish said in a video on IPL’s official website.

Meanwhile, Nitish won the Player of the Match award but he gave complete credit to Abdul Samad with whom he stitched a 50-run stand for the 6th wicket.

“To be honest, even I felt that it was difficult to play them. Arshdeep (Singh) was bowling the outswingers well and at that time, I backed myself to have self-belief, otherwise I was not going to make it. I needed to play out the fast bowlers and then attack the spinners,” Nitish said.

“When Brar came into the attack, I thought I had to take him down, otherwise we are not going to get the total we wanted. When I was planning to score quick runs, it was the time he (Samad) came. It’s not easy for batters to attack all bowlers. He gave me a little confidence. He came and played some good shots down the ground,” Nitish added.

With the win on Tuesday, Hyderabad is currently placed fifth in the table with 6 points and a net run rate of +0.344 thanks to wins in 3 out of 5 games.

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