‘I should thank Gautam sir’: Nitish Kumar Reddy credits Gambhir’s advice for his impressive bowling against Bangladesh

India’s greenhorn player Nitish Kumar Reddy has had a dream start to his T20I career. Reddy dropped Towhid Hridoy’s catch in the opening T20I against Bangladesh at Gwalior, but since then, everything he has touched has turned into gold. 

Reddy was given the new ball by skipper Suryakumar Yadav in the second T20I. The youngster could not strike in the Powerplay overs but accounted for veteran batter Mahmudullah and Tanzim Hasan Sakib in the death overs to return with impressive figures of 2-23.

The right-arm medium pacer gave credit to the head coach Gautam Gambhir for giving him confidence.

“To be honest, I should thank Gautam sir for this. He gave me a lot of confidence and told me to believe in my bowling,” Reddy told BCCI. “(He said) ‘when you are bowling, you should think like a bowler and not as a batsman who can bowl’. That is what he kept telling me and that somehow boosted me.”

“Playing for India is in itself a proud moment and getting the man of the match (award), I feel so grateful for this and I just want to live in this moment,” he added.

Meanwhile, Reddy scored a fine knock of 74 runs off just 34 balls in the second T20I against the Tigers in Delhi. The right-hander added 108 runs off 51 balls with Rinku Singh and played a key role in helping India post a sizeable score of 221 runs on the board.

“We were having a smooth conversation, not taking any pressure. We did not plan anything about the score. We saw the spinner coming on to bowl, and we thought that this was the main over and we should take him on,” Reddy said of his partnership with Rinku.

“He (Rinku) was telling me that maybe it is God’s plan. We were just believing (in) it and we were just hitting the balls,” Reddy added.

The third T20I of the series will be played at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad on Saturday.