All-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy continued his good form with the bat, scoring a fifty and helping India avert a follow-on against Australia in the fourth Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series, in Melbourne.
Reddy scored his maiden Test half-century with a sparkling drive for four off Mitchell Starc, and celebrated it in style, imitating actor Allu Arjun's iconic gesture from the blockbuster Pushpa and Pushpa 2, with his bat.
NITISH KUMAR REDDY WITH PUSHPA CELEBRATION. 🥶 pic.twitter.com/9NHjpPdBpj
— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) December 28, 2024
Reddy had scored 42 apiece in both the innings in the second Test in Adelaide, and had scored important runs—41 and 38—in the first Test in Perth which India won.
Fellow all-rounder Washington Sundar (29*) is keeping him company, as the duo look to reduce India's deficit as far as possible.
India went into lunch at 244/7, with Rishabh Pant once again falling to an inexplicable shot. India were going steady at 191/5, but the wicketkeeper-batter (28 off 37 balls) fell to the urge to play the falling lap pull over long-leg. "If there is a word called 'worstest', then this was one such shot," former India skipper Sunil Gavaskar described it on air.
Jadeja was trapped leg-before by Lyon for 17. But Reddy and Sundar steadied the ship.
India resumed the innings on day 3 from 164/5, after a mini-collapse saw India going from 153/2 to losing three wickets for 13 runs on day 2. Yashaswi Jaiswal made a solid 82, before being run out in a terrible mix-up with Virat Kohli (36), which triggered the collapse.
Earlier in the match, Steve Smith equalled Gavaskar's record of 34 centuries to take Australia to 474 in the first innings.
