Nitish Kumar Reddy’s father: ‘No one used to know my name outside my town, but now in Australia people are asking selfies’ | Cricket News

Whenever I speak of Nitish I get tears in my eyes. As a child, he was so mischievous and the Nitish we are seeing now is totally different. At times, we ourselves doubt if it is the same person. Nitish to me is a god-given child. After praying to lord Venkataramana he was born to us. For Nitish, 2024 has been a golden year.
I will describe to you an incident when we came to Australia to meet Nitish. I hugged him and told him you have brought us this far; I am feeling proud of you and this is enough. And he replied, ‘Daddy, it is not over yet, I will show you more and more going forward’. And he showed it scoring a 100 yesterday. I hugged him saying you have brought us this far. It is enough that I am happy. Within 24 hours, he scored a century. If you don’t keep faith in a son like this, whom else should I trust?

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The Reddy family has been a bundle of emotions today. Witness the magical moment as they embrace Nitish after he wowed the world with his extraordinary maiden Test century at the MCG.
A day etched in memories… pic.twitter.com/uz9mrASuRm
— BCCI (@BCCI) December 28, 2024
We know who we are and where we come from. I come from a small town; no one knows my name if I leave my small region. But today in Australia, people are asking for selfies, I cannot explain how happy and proud I am. And when I saw Sunil Gavaskar the day after my son hit that hundred, I just couldn’t control myself. I had to do proper namaskaram, touch his feet, and seek his blessings. Gavaskar is like the god of cricket. Be it Sachin Tendulkar or Gavaskar or MSK Prasad or Rahul Dravid everyone sees them like god. The moment I saw him it felt like I had seen god, so I asked for his blessings. I touched his feet and asked for the blessings; even if my son was here I would have asked him to touch his feet. When he used to hit a boundary, I used to clap and now today talking about my son, he had tears in his eyes! I broke down.
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)
After all, what is the name of the trophy? (Border Gavaskar Trophy) When you meet such legends and if you don’t bend to touch their feet it will look like we are egoic. Gavaskar sir said, “You have given a good boy to Indian cricket; he is playing well and has the stability to play in all the formats. And I want to see more 100s from him”.

I have been often asked about my decision to quit my job and focus on Nitish’s cricket. I have to thank my wife for it. I love sports and she likes education. I told her, ‘Let’s make our daughter a doctor and let Nitish play cricket’. It was during his U14 days I still had 23 years of service left and I got transferred to Udaipur. Should I go or not, I was in a state of confusion as he had not played for the state at that point and the coaches said he was playing cricket well. Since that day when I resigned she used to take care of household chores; I would just wake up and go with my son to the ground and stay there the whole day even if I had food or not. Some days I used to be happy and some days I used to be sad. On the day he used to get 100 I was happy and on the day he went out for a duck I used to be sad. My wife is not emotional like me and used to lighten the mood with some comedy! If it had been someone else they would have complained that there are still 23 years of service left, how will our life go on. Had she said that then, I would not have been able to do what I did. She just said all is fine, don’t worry.
We had to plan his diet, everything. If you just cook it and ask him to eat he will not eat. If you explain to him if you eat fish, calcium will increase and mutton will increase protein, and leafy vegetables will improve your eyesight… if you explain to him these reasons, even if it doesn’t taste good, he will eat it. When he comes back from this series, my wife will cook his favourite meat dish – Mutton Gongura. I will also go to the shipyard and get fresh prawns for him.
Nitish Kumar Reddy with his family. (Special Arrangement)
As his uncle, my wife’s brother, just told you, Nitish was a naughty kid. When he would return from school with his uncle, he used to do naughty things like take a stone, hit the mango tree, and run away. The uncle was left to fight for him! Now I can’t recognise that mischievous boy; his maturity is far beyond his years and still stuns me.
The change happened during COVID-19. Until that point, he had played U14, U16 casually. Those two years when he was at home is when he realised that ‘my mother and father are going through these many hardships’. Those days even people who had money suffered but we suffered a little more. That is when he realised ‘Dad is not doing any job, they are all dependent on me. I should play cricket and take my father to the same status as he was before. For everyone to respect us again, I have to play cricket well.’ That is the mindset he got himself into. We used to wake him at 6 am, his mother used to wake up at 4 am to boil eggs, and prepare milk. Once Covid was over Nitish was fixated mentally and he used to wake me up! “Dad let’s go to the ground, let’s go to the gym”.
As told to Sriram Veera at the MCG (Translation Tanishq Vaddi)

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