Ranji Trophy quarterfinal: Nitish, Sasikanth breathe new life into Andhra’s hopes of entering semis

Madhya Pradesh’s batting line-up collapsed like a pack of cards, with Andhra’s Nitish Kumar Reddy and K.V. Sasikanth taking wickets at regular intervals in the battle for the final four.

Nitish was the best bowler for Andhra in the second innings, taking four wickets for 28 runs. | Photo Credit: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar / The Hindu

The Andhra fast bowlers took a leaf out of their Madhya Pradesh counterparts and bowled stump-to-stump throughout the first session on Sunday, and reaped the rewards.

As Nitish Kumar Reddy and K.V. Sasikanth breathed fire, Madhya Pradesh’s batting line-up collapsed like a pack of cards, allowing the visiting team to bounce back in the game and inch closer to reaching its first-ever Ranji Trophy semifinal.

While the Holkar Stadium surface had no demons, Nitish claimed a four-fer to rip apart the opponent’s batting as per plan. “It’s always about learning from the other innings. We knew that MP succeeded from that (bowling stump-to-stump) and how we lagged, so in the second innings, we tried that out,” the 20-year-old told Sportstar.

“We had a simple plan of hitting the off-stump and the fourth stump. We believed in ourselves and did pretty well in terms of executing our plans.”

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After conceding a first-innings lead, Hanuma Vihari addressed the Andhra team and told it not to lose hope. Once the India international finished his session, the bowling unit had a separate meeting about the plan of action.

And it was well-executed during the third day’s play.

“Yesterday, during a discussion in the dressing room, Vihari said that nobody needs to lose their character and their belief. We did that and got the wickets. We kept things simple and decided to stick to our plans,” Nitish said, adding, “Later, the bowlers had a meeting and we discussed that our attitude has to be on spot. That’s what matters…”

So far in the tournament, he has had a good partnership with Sasikanth, and Nitish believes that exchanging ideas always helps.

“Sasikanth is a very motivating guy, so he keeps us charged up. We never lost hope. They (MP) had a 60-plus (62) run lead, but we kept those runs out of our minds and started afresh, and that approach helped us…”

Last year, Andhra made it to the quarterfinals before losing to Madhya Pradesh at the same venue, but it hopes to break the jinx this time around.