Nitish Reddy was among a handful of Indian players who impressed everyone on the Australian tour Down Under. Making his Test debut at the Optus Stadium in Perth, Reddy slammed his maiden hundred three games later at the MCG, as the cricketing world went gaga over it. Although everyone cheered for him, Reddy revealed he strived for validation from two people, one in the dressing room and one outside.

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Reddy is an emerging star. After making the right noises in the domestic games in the lead-up to his IPL debut last season, where Reddy smoked 303 runs and picked three wickets in SRH’s almost successful campaign, head coach Gautam Gambhir unleashed him onto the international scene. Following his T20I debut earlier, Reddy got his maiden chance in the Test series Down Under, grabbing the opportunity with both hands.

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Reddy shared shoulders with some of the best names in cricket the past year and narrated one of the inside stories during an hour-long podcast at PUMA India headquarters in Bengaluru. 

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“Back in the locker room, he (Virat 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 revealed during a recent chat.

Meanwhile, detailing what happened inside the dressing room post his maiden Test hundred, Reddy said, “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.”

Conversation with Head

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Reddy plays with Australia superstar Travis Head at SRH in the IPL, with whom he will be back in action during the 18th season, starting March 22. Revealing a conversation with the attacking batter sometime during the BGT, Reddy said Head tried to distract him during his stay at the crease.

“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!” Reddy said.

(With inputs from agencies)