Work in progress: Nitish Reddy’s lean returns raise doubts over Hardik Pandya backup plan for 2027 World Cup | Cricket News – The Times of India

NEW DELHI: As a seam-bowling allrounder, Nitish Kumar Reddy is a project struggling to launch. The team management sees him as a key piece of the puzzle in constructing a well-rounded team. It’s just that the piece is refusing to fit in. Uninspiring numbers across formats aside, the reluctance of the captain to use him has become a mystery in itself.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!Reddy bowling just two overs and coming out to bat at No. 7 during India’s loss to New Zealand in the second ODI in Rajkot on Wednesday was just another instance of skipper Shubman Gill resisting giving him a greater role.

“With Nitish, we keep talking about developing him and getting him game time. And then when you do get him game time, he often ends up not doing a heck of a lot in the games,” Team India assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate told reporters in Rajkot after the game.“For someone who’s making their way in the game — particularly with the bat tonight — it was that perfect chance where you walk in that situation and you’ve got a chance to spend 15 overs at the crease. You really have to take those chances to push your case to be selected,” ten Doeschate said.

It’s not just Gill. Suryakumar Yadav has struggled to give him game time in the T20I format as well, even when Reddy has been with the team. As stand-in captain in the second Test against South Africa in Guwahati two months ago, Rishabh Pant too didn’t show enough confidence in his bowling. And Reddy’s batting returns have only headed south since his century at the MCG in December 2024.TOI understands the selectors and the team management want to create a backup for Hardik Pandya while building the team for the 2027 ODI World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.With Pandya’s fragile body often not allowing him to bowl full tilt for many overs, the selectors need someone who can be the fourth seamer in those conditions.

With not too many ODIs going into the World Cup, it’s become all the more important for the management to give Reddy more opportunities. “I can’t see anything that we’ve had to skirt around in terms of prepping for the World Cup. There’s a lot at stake individually for these players in these series. The World Cup is still a long way away, but you have to build from series to series and get good habits,” ten Doeschate said.The Indian team management has tried to push allrounders up the order ahead of KL Rahul over the last 12 months. The moves haven’t failed, but they also haven’t yielded dramatically different results. With Rahul showing he has the game to control the middle overs of an ODI innings, the team management can now explore limiting the all-rounders to roles starting only from No. 6 in the batting order.“One of our strategies in the last 18 months has been to prolong the batting order. We do like to use the all-rounder either high up the order or at No. 5 like we’ve done with Washy in the past. But that certainly is an avenue to explore with KL finding the form that he’s in now. He can be a regular No. 5 and play allrounders at six, seven, eight — with hopefully Harshit being that No. 8,” explained ten Doeschate.The team management under head coach Gautam Gambhir has invested a lot in Reddy. It’s time he delivered returns or he may just run out of time very, very quickly.