NEW DELHI: India all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy shared how a light-hearted dressing room banter with Virat Kohli led to him receiving a special gift from the former India captain— a pair of shoes that he later wore while scoring his maiden Test century against Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).
“Back in the locker room, he (Kohli) once asked Sarfaraz (Khan), ‘Sarfu, tera size kya hai?’ (Sarfaraz, what’s your shoe size?), and he said, ‘Nine.’ Then he turned to me, and I thought, ‘Oh my god, I have to guess this correctly,’ because even if they weren’t my size, I really wanted his shoes. I said, ‘10,’ and he gave them to me. In the next match, I wore those shoes and scored a hundred!" Reddy recalled during a podcast on PUMA’s YouTube channel on Thursday.
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After reaching his first Test hundred in 171 balls at the MCG, Nitish revealed that his eyes were searching for his father, Mutyalu, who was in the stands alongside his mother, sister, and uncle, among the 80,000-odd spectators.
“Everyone in the dressing room came up and congratulated me, but I was just looking for one guy—hoping he’d come and talk to me.
“When Virat bhai (Kohli) finally walked up and told me I had played a wonderful game, that moment itself was special for me. I was also scanning the stands for my father but couldn’t find him. Later, I saw on the screen that he was crying.”
Nitish also shared a fun moment from the Test series in Australia when his Sunrisers Hyderabad teammate Travis Head tried to distract him with some playful sledging.
“Travis came up to me and said, ‘Nitish, where are you going to party tonight?’—knowing fully well that I wouldn’t.
“Then he went on, ‘Australia is such a great place. Melbourne is an amazing city, you have to go out and chill.’ He was just trying to distract me. I just told him, ‘Okay, Travis, one day we’ll both go and party!’ During another match, he was fielding at short leg and warned me, ‘Nitish, if you hit me, I’ll hit you when you bowl!’” he said.
Nitish will next play for Sunrisers Hyderabad in IPL 2025 and spoke about how difficult it was to turn down other franchises in order to stay with a team he considers home.
“To be honest, I got some offers. But SRH is one team which I can really connect with. Like, it’s a home team for me. It feels like you’re representing your home team and want to make a wonderful impact in that team.
“I just want to perform well and bring that cup back to SRH, and they have shown absolute faith in me. I felt that it’s my time when I have to show faith and regive trust in me to them. Some conversations were going on to get me in the auction from other franchises. My answer was that I always wanted to play for SRH, but it was not an easy no to say to everyone.
“When I play for the team, whenever someone comes to talk to me in Telugu, they take me as kind of their own brother. Like, someone known to them is playing for their home team. Obviously, Orange Army, that thing is huge and they support really well. The number of people who come and support us in the stadium, it's massive. When those orange flags came in the Orange stadium, we really love that energy,” he concluded.
