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Karun Nair has made a grand comeback to India’s Test team after eight years, after a stellar domestic season and impressive County Cricket performances.
Karun Nair scored four hundreds in the recent Ranji Trophy season (Picture credit: PTI)
While a lot of talk would be about Shubman Gill trumping ace pacer Jasprit Bumrah in the race to India’s Test captaincy, star batter Karun Nair has made a grand comeback to the national red-ball team, after playing his last Test back in 2017, soon after scoring a record-breaking triple hundred.
After that innings, Nair‘s next four scores read 26, 0, 23 and 5, in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy at home. The fledgling form meant that he didn’t sit in the scheme of the selectors for long and was eventually dropped.
Nair’s form did not get much better in IPL 2017, and he ended the season with 281 runs at an average of 21.61 and was handed the leadership of the India A team for two four-day matches in South Africa.
India drew that series 1-1, and Nair scored 136 runs in two matches at an average of 34, but that was definitely not enough to impress the selectors again.
In the Duleep Trophy later in 2017, Nair played just one match and scored 157 runs in it, but the overlook continued and it would for the next eight years, before a sudden gap in the middle-order in the famed Indian batting lineup and a breakthrough domestic season, earned him a recall for a tour of England.
While he did the hard yards in the domestic circle, in 2023, Nair signed up for Northamptonshire to play some County Cricket, which one believes might help him on the upcoming tour of England. He scored 249 runs in three matches that season, at a stunning average of 83.
Nair travelled back to Northamptonshire last year and this time played seven games in Division Two, scoring 487 runs at an average of 48.7 and one hundred to his name, but what stood apart was an unbeaten 202-run knock against Glamorgan.
“It’s still exciting to wake up each morning and dream of finding a way back to play Tests. That keeps me going. I would love to win trophies; we missed out in the Ranji last year,” Nair had told ESPNCricinfo after last year’s County stint.
The 33-year-old batter manifested his wish. Having moved to Vidarbha from Karnataka, Nair scored a match-winning century against Tamil Nadu in the Ranji quarterfinals earlier this year.
In the final against Vidarbha, Nair scored 86 and 135 in two innings as Vidarbha romped to the title. He finished with 863 runs in nine matches at a stunning average of 53.93.
One would assume that if Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli were still in the mix, there would have been no place for Nair in the squad, as it has been for the last few years. But things have finally fallen into place for the 33-year-old.
Nair has also been named in the India A squad that will take on the England Lions, and if he can score some considerable runs in the two matches, who knows, he might make a glorious comeback into the Indian middle-order, which is looking for much-needed stability and an experienced hand in Kohli’s absence.
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