Nitish Kumar Reddy channels his inner Pushpa Raj after maiden half-century; Sunil Gavaskar reacts | VIDEO

Nitish Kumar Reddy finally reached his maiden half-century following a string of forties in the ongoing Border Gavaskar Trophy. After reaching the milestone, Reddy imitated the famous Pushpa Raj celebration, which also drew a reaction from Sunil Gavaskar on commentary.

Reddy got to his half-century after scoring a boundary on a wide delivery from Mitchell Starc. After reaching the milestone, Reddy took the bat around his neck in a bid to replicate the iconic scene performed by Allu Arjun in Telugu blockbuster Pushpa. In the commentary, veteran cricketer Sunil Gavaskar immediately recognized the celebration and said, ‘O… Pushpa’.

Notably, the line "Pushpa jhukega nahi sala" is a dialogue from the Hindi version of the movie Pushpa: The Rise, translating to "Pushpa will never bow down, damn it!". In the context of the movie, it symbolised the lead character's determination to face daunting challenges without bowing down to anyone.

Nitish Kumar Reddy in Border Gavaskar Trophy:

Reddy is also now India's third-highest run-scorer and 5th highest run-scorer in this year's Border Gavaskar Trophy. The 21-year-old batsman has scored 240 runs in the series at an average of 60 and a strike rate of 70.38.

Reddy's knock is special, given the context of the match. He came to bat when the team were six wickets down on 191 and went on to build a partnership of over 100 runs with Washington Sundar to avoid the follow-on.

The pair of Sundar and Reddy will continue to have a lot of work to do as India are still over 150 runs behind in the game. The Melbourne pitch has also settled down and is looking good to bat, providing the Indian batters an opportunity to tire out the Aussie pace attack.