Former Indian all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin has heaped praise on Nitish Kumar Reddy after Sunrisers Hyderabad claimed a convincing 33-run win against Punjab Kings at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad on Wednesday.
Reddy scored a quickfire cameo of 29 runs off just 13 balls with the help of two fours and as many maximums. He added 63 runs off 32 balls with Heinrich Klaasen, who scored 69 runs off 43 balls. As a result, SRH were able to post a par score of 234 runs on the board after Shreyas Iyer decided to bowl first.
Furthermore, Reddy dismissed in-form Prabhsimran Singh with Pat Cummins taking a good catch and he returned with figures of 1-11 in two overs he bowled.
Ravichandran Ashwin said on his YouTube Channel, “Klaasen’s gonna have the tournament to remember. I feel like that. In the powerplay, Travis Head and Abhishek are batting with freedom. Ishan Kishan is not the captain, so not so much baggage. So, he’s also playing with a lot of freedom.”
“But this time, SRH have one more MVP alongside Klaasen, and that’s Nitish Kumar Reddy. In this season, he has worked good enough. We have read articles about how he increased his speed up to 140kmph. If he increases his pace, he won’t be able to bowl 8-10 overs. In T20s, you need only four overs. But credit where it’s due because he worked on skill upgradation.
“He is taking his time and picking the right deliveries to attack. He has a dangerous bat swing. Now, he is taking a fraction of a second, extra time. He smashed Lockie Ferguson for a six against a slower ball in the 19th over. He waited, stayed still, and it was a very good shot,” he added.
Ashwin tipped SRH as the dark horse of IPL 2026 and said the Orange Army is ticking the right boxes as a unit.
“In Cummins’ captaincy, the Orange Army are saying chase us if you can. SRH is a dark horse. If someone can stop RCB, that is SRH. This is a team to really watch out for in this edition of the IPL.”
Sunrisers Hyderabad will next take on Gujarat Titans at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad, on Tuesday.
