How Nitish Kumar Reddy countered Pat Cummins, Scott Boland and Nathan Lyon for an impressive maiden Test hundred

Not that there is no thinking in Konstas; his attack on Bumrah was an epic takedown that had risk-taking thought behind it, accompanied by the confidence in the hard work put in those lap shots. Reddy is more conventionally calculative, though he has these imperious statement-making urges when he feels he is under attack from the bowlers.

India’s Nitish Kumar Reddy plays a shot during play on the third day of the fourth cricket test between Australia and India at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne, Australia. (AP)

There was this battle with Pat Cummins on the third day of the Boxing Day Test that perhaps won’t make it to YouTube immortality, but discerning audiences would have relished it.

Not a mainstream blockbuster like Konstas’s was; more a niche cult. It was a day when Mitch Starc, struggling with a back niggle, couldn’t test him. Early on, he flashed a four and later walloped a cover boundary to bring up his fifty and do that “Thaggede le”, slash-the-throat celebration with his bat, a reference to that Telugu movie Pushpa.

“𝙈𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙟𝙝𝙪𝙠𝙚𝙜𝙖 𝙣𝙖𝙝𝙞!” 🔥

The shot, the celebration – everything was perfect as #NitishKumarReddy completed his maiden Test fifty! 👏#AUSvINDOnStar 👉 4th Test, Day 3 | LIVE NOW! | #ToughestRivalry #BorderGavaskarTrophy pic.twitter.com/hupun4pq2N

— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) December 28, 2024

Of all the Australian bowlers on the day, or for that matter in the series, Cummins’s art is most cerebrally incisive, exploring the weaknesses of batsmen with different means. At one phase, his approach against Reddy was, to put it in simple terms, to push him back, and then slip in the natural nip-backer. It was not as simple as a one-two boom, but something he would work on assiduously over a couple of overs.

Standing with his bat on almost the off-stump guard, Reddy presses back from his stance, and at times ends with both feet inside the crease. A lesser bowler would have tried the fuller inward floater, but Cummins has seen enough of Reddy in this series to know that the denouement can’t be that simple.

He would follow the vicious bouncers or the away-shapers with the in-cutter but from a full-length. With Reddy on the press-back, the delivery has immense merits. He can’t hang back and punch. He can’t just lean forward and let his hands do the work, which could be done if it were fuller; a ball that Australians repeatedly try at Shubman Gill. Reddy now has to try to get forward or stand up on his toes and try to punch a ball that is still moving around. Not easy.

India’s Nitish Kumar Reddy celebrates his fifty runs during play on the third day of the fourth cricket test between Australia and India at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne, Australia. (AP)

But Reddy’s game is built around compactness. He can move forward quickly towards the ball from that position of retreat and punch on the up past Cummins. Time and again, he did that. Not for him, the weak-angled prod of the bat like Gill can, or the iffy-looking flail of Marnus Labuschagne with such deliveries.

At one point as he turned away after the ball had passed him, Cummins had this lovely smile as he looked across at Reddy. Almost appreciative or perhaps a self-referential message that he needs to cook up something else.

And he did, of course. The bouncers began to bend back in at Reddy, who managed to swerve away at the last instant, as he did in the 68th over. Scott Boland hit him near the arm once in the 89th over, making him flinch in pain. Reddy’s response on both occasions was quite telling.

Here is where the counter-attacking statement-making urges come to the fore. He charged Cummins, who of course is a damn good bowler who knew what was coming and had let slip another bounce, curving in even further and it just about slipped past Reddy’s head and down leg side. Both the batsman and the bowler smiled this time.

India’s Nitish Kumar Reddy, left, celebrates his fifty runs with his partner Mohammed Siraj during play on the third day of the fourth cricket test between Australia and India at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne, Australia. (AP)

Reddy’s response to Boland was somewhat similar. He went for the reverse ramp, because why not! There is this streak in him seen throughout this series whenever he has been ‘attacked’ by the bowlers; reflexively he likes to put them back under the kosh. That shot didn’t come off, but a few balls later, arrived a resplendent off-drive, with a high left elbow and the accompanying jazz.

Cummins would amp up the bouncer attack again and hit him just after lunch in the arm in the 74th over. Unlike the pre-lunch session, Cummins didn’t follow up with the nip-backers but would test him now and then with the whistler in the off-stump channel.

Reddy was beaten a couple of times, and once scooped out an edgy aerial drive over mid-off. Before that spell ended, Cummins rapped him on the pad with a nip-backer but it was too high for the lbw appeal to be held, and the Cummins threat was over for the time being.

If there has been one Indian batsman who must have made Nathan Lyon feel his age in this series, it’s been Nitish Reddy. He has been dominating the offspinner right from the Perth Test; charging, driving, cutting. Saturday at the MCG was no different. Initially, he wasn’t quite up to the pitch when running down the track, but he went through with the shots. Once that danger passed, and he had settled in, Lyon’s chances kept fading out.

India’s Nitish Kumar Reddy hits a six during the day one of the second cricket test match between Australia and India at the Adelaide Oval in Adelaide, Australia, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/James Elsby)

Not that he didn’t keep trying with different challenges. After a chat with Cummins, in the 94th over, Lyon had kept a deep point and a deepish backward point: ‘There is a gap right near you, if you want to cut, you can but there is no real reward of a boundary there’.

The pace kept varying: 90.3kmph one ball to 85.4 next and 87.6 to follow. Reddy went for it nevertheless. He thought about a cut but decided against it, he went for a tap to backward point and when that final ball arrived, much fuller, Reddy adapted to do what that length demanded of him: a scoop drive over covers to untenanted areas to pick up a four and move to 77.

Soon, off Mitch Marsh, he unfurled a help-along flick that eluded the diving Mitch Starc and ran to the boundary. It was followed with a punchy on-the-up shot to the cover-point boundary to move into the 80s but a rain interruption affected that flow. A stalemate followed on the resumption with just 13 runs in 10 overs as Washington Sundar neared 50, Reddy hovered in the end 80s and India inched forward.

Soon, though, Sundar fell to an over-spun bouncy turner from Lyon and dramatic suspense re-entered the arena. Can he get that hundred or not? He went for a big heave against Boland that cleared mid-off and he moved to 99. He wanted to take just one, but indecisiveness between him and a rushing Bumrah meant they crossed over with Reddy holding his helmeted head at the silliness of losing strike.

India’s Nitish Kumar Reddy hits a six during play in the first cricket test between India and Australia in Perth, Australia, Friday, Nov. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Trevor Collens)

Next over, his fear came through as Bumrah was nicked off by Cummins, who had brought himself back exactly for that. But Siraj held out for the next three balls and the last-ball compact defence brought out a smile and a thumbs-up from Reddy.

And then came the moment with the sweetest shot imaginable and totally befitting to the occasion of a maiden Test century: an on-the-up dreamy punchy lofted straight hit. He crossed over, got down on his right knee, propped his helmet on the bat handle, and pointed his index finger to the skies. In the stands, his father broke down. In the middle, his son broke Australia’s back.