Reddy Makes His Way into the Test Squad for the Australia Series: It created a lot of confusion with the newcomer Nitish Kumar Reddy in the BGT series opener in Perth, where ahead of Pit Chucker, some great all-rounders like Hardik Pandya and “Shardul Thakur” are still pending to be included.
Nitish, who has played only 23 first-class games, was included in the international team in the T20I series against Bangladesh and was equally effective in different capacities.
During the pre-match press conference held for the Indian team cricket, bowling coach Morne Morkel had some encouraging words for Nitish, saying the world can produce a thinking cricketer.
However, Harbhajan Singh raised eyebrows to ask why Pant, who has not played Test cricket since 2018, or Shardul Thakur, who has played Test cricket on India’s recent tour to Australia, was dropped.
Harbhajan also seems puzzled about why there is one match-winning all-rounder but no experienced all-around player in this team for such an important series.
Harbhajan also considered Nitish and his fitness in the setup compared to the former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly. He wrote that Nitish could occasionally chip in with some medium-pacer bowling for regular-pace bowling in the same way as Ganguly used to.
“If he can bowl a few overs and get 1-2 wickets, that will be helpful to the team,” said Harbhajan. Similarly, the selection of Nitish also alters the style of the team’s policy towards the lower orders, from ‘beefing up’ experience to promoting ‘greenhorns’ for a version of the game.
While some critics have regarded this as an attempt to nurture future stars of the game, some, like Harbhajan, might see it as a way of watering down India for ultra-demanding series.
It has also fuelled a debate regarding the role of youth and experience in a national team before Nitish’s performance when he was beginning his innings for the first match in a series.
