Fresh off his recall to the Indian team, Yuzvendra Chahal was guilty of conceding the most expensive over in Rajasthan Royals’ bowling innings. 21 runs came off the 13th over. IPL’s highest wicket taker found his match in 20-year-old Nitish Kumar Reddy. On Thursday night at the Uppal, the Sunrisers Hyderabad all-rounder was simply too good with the bat. Nitish’s 76* (42b, 3x4,8x6) was his second fifty in the season. And he’s had a couple of promising spells with his medium pace too.

The bar is so low in Indian cricket; when any pace bowling all-rounder has a good day, the performance glows. Only the other day, Chief selector Ajit Agarkar made it clear that his committee saw no one who could challenge Hardik Pandya’s spot even when he’s endured a forgettable IPL season with bat and ball.

When Chahal gave the ball air, Nitish carted him for maximum over his head. When the leg-spinner went wider, Nitish showed he had the reach to send it one bounce over extra cover. Chahal changed his lines and twice foiled Nitish’s reverse hits. Back to giving air at a shortened length and the youngster flat batted it for six down the ground. Clearly, Nitish had been taking lessons on picking up spinners’ lengths from Heinrich Klassen. Chahal had to go defensive again and hurl it down leg, but this time Nitish connected his reverse hit over point for a four. It’s a genuine scoring option for Nitish as his lofted shots in the V.

It was his day and Nitish wasn’t going to show any politeness to seniority. After taking Chahal down for 23 runs in 10 balls, he scored 21 runs in 8 balls off Ravichandran Ashwin. His 44 runs against the two experienced spinners came in a mere 18 balls. Together with Travis Head, Nitish laid the foundation for Klassen to do further damage in the death overs.