Sunrisers Hyderabad all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy admitted that "a special person" helped him regain his rhythm with the ball during a spell out with injuries. However, the young Indian international decided not to disclose his identity at this stage. Reddy, a 22-year-old, who is widely considered to be the future pace-bowling all-rounder of India, following in the footsteps of the likes of Hardik Pandya, had a terrible time with fitness issues in the past year. The neck spasm, followed by a left quadriceps injury in 2025 sidelined him at key junctures. Fitness problems prevented Reddy from gaining any traction in his bowling and were a major factor in him missing out on a spot in the Indian squad for the 2026 T20 World Cup, where Shivam Dube was chosen as the second seam-bowling all-rounder. Reddy said after bagging the player of the match award against KKR: "It has always been a concern for me and I wanted to work on my bowling but injuries always got the better of me in the past year and that is why I had no time to myself to work on the bowling. However, fortunately I got some time for myself before the season and spent a week working with a specific person, that really made a lot of difference in my bowling and his advice made perfect sense." Asked about this "special person", Reddy just grinned and said: "Will let you know at the end." Also Read| Abhishek Sharma Handed Hefty Fine by IPL After KKR vs SRH Clash – What Happened? A Match-Winning All-Rounder Show Reddy proved how much that short spell with a mystery coach can do for a bowler as he starred with both bat and ball against KKR in their IPL 2026 encounter at the Eden Gardens. Reddy scored 39 off 24 balls while picking up 2 wickets for 17 runs in his 2 overs. When Reddy walked out to bat, SRH were struggling at 118 for 4 after a collapse. But, he stitched an important 82-run stand for the fifth wicket with Heinrich Klaasen (52) that brought the SRH back into the game, and powered them to a massive score, having gotten a rollicking start by their opening pair of Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma. Reddy was a smart bowler on the field and used the conditions to his advantage to get key breakthroughs. He came on to bowl in the middle overs and picked up wickets like Rinku Singh with a slower ball. Nitish Kumar Reddy signed off with a smile: "Honestly, when I was batting, I found the wicket to be quite two-paced. When the bowlers try to bowl slow bouncers, they stick at times and other times they go rushing to the batter. Therefore I decided to use my slower ones, and Rinku's wicket with a faster one, that rushed to the batsman and made him edge it, resulted due to my slower ball," Reddy revealed how he went about taking the wicket of Rinku Singh. "Slower one is one of my strengths and I decided to make the best use of it." Talking about the bowling plan adopted by SRH, Reddy said they decided to use spinners more as the pace bowlers were being punished by the KKR batters at the top of the order in the powerplay. "Because the KKR pacers were leaking runs at the opening and middle overs in the powerplay, we decided to opt for spinners in the middle overs and we respected the pitch and modified our strategy according to it." Reddy also stated that it is always enjoyable to bat with Klassen as the latter is an experienced player who reads the match situation accurately: "I have enjoyed a lot batting with Klaasen as he is an experienced player and reads the game well at whatever situation the team is at." Defending SRH's bowling unit, Reddy said that they have capable bowlers like Jaydev Unadkat, Ehsan Mallinga and David Payne in their side and is not something that is being considered a weakness for SRH. Reddy concluded with a smile: "We do have experienced bowlers like Jaydev Unadkat and Ehsan Mallinga at our disposal who are performing well, along with David Payne. Therefore I don't think our bowling attack is that bad." With this all-round performance from Nitish Kumar Reddy, SRH thrashed KKR by 65 runs and finally opened their account in IPL 2026.