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

The Andhra quick bowlers took a leaf out of their Madhya Pradesh counterparts and bowled stump-to-stump all through the primary session on Sunday, and reaped the rewards.

As Nitish Kumar Reddy and Okay.V. Sasikanth breathed fireplace, Madhya Pradesh’s batting line-up collapsed like a pack of playing cards, permitting the visiting crew to bounce again within the sport and inch nearer to reaching its first-ever Ranji Trophy semifinal.

While the Holkar Stadium floor had no demons, Nithish claimed a four-fer to tear aside the opponent’s batters 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 advised 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.”

RELATED: Ranji Trophy 2023-24 quarterfinals: Andhra inches nearer to historic win towards Madhya Pradesh

After conceding a first-innings lead, Hanuma Vihari addressed the Andhra crew and advised it to not lose hope. Once the India worldwide completed his session, the bowling unit had a separate assembly in regards to the plan of motion.

And it was nicely executed through 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 stated, including: “Later, the bowlers had a meeting and we discussed that our attitude has to be on spot. That’s what matters…”

So far within the match, he has had a superb partnership with Sasikanth, and Nitish believes that exchanging concepts at all times 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 yr, Andhra made it to the quarterfinals earlier than dropping to Madhya Pradesh on the identical venue, however it hopes to interrupt the jinx, this time round.