On December 10, 2022, a hurt Karun Nair wrote on his social media handles: ‘Dear cricket give me one more chance.’ On May 24, 2025, cricket replied: ‘Dear Karun, you will get one more chance.’ The 33-year-old Nair got that opportunity for a career re-launch through his selection to the 18-member Indian squad for next month’s tour of England. It’s an extraordinary tale of comeback, of persistence and willingness to grind it out in the disheartening obscurity of domestic cricket over eight years.
Even the toughest man can crumble under that draining drill, optimism getting sun-dried by each passing day.
But Nair dared to dream a comeback even when the world around him believed that all the hopes had been extinguished. After all, it’s easy to forget old names amidst the rush of fresh talents.
However, one part in Nair remained unyielding, forcing him to explore various channels to return to run-making ways, and joining Northamptonshire in English County cricket was a wise first step.
In 2023, he made 249 runs from three matches at an average of 83 for Northants, including a hundred against eventual champions Surrey.
A year later, Nair aggregated 487 runs from seven matches at an average of 49, including a century against Glamorgan for his County side.
But those numbers were not strong enough to spark a national return but were good enough to give him the confidence.
“Everyone knows, for Indian batsmen to go and score runs in England … to play the moving ball is tough. So, I’ve learnt a lot more about myself as a batsman and finding ways to score runs and believing in myself,” Nair had told PTI last year.
The real turnaround in his career came along with his shift to Vidarbha from Karnataka, where he was increasingly finding it difficult to get a place in the first eleven.
Vidarbha, who were on the lookout for a seasoned pro in their batting line-up then, welcomed Nair gleefully to their ranks.
The right-hander did not disappoint his new side either, racking 690 runs from 10 matches with two hundreds and three fifties.
Nair pushed his stocks another rung up in the 2024-25 season, amassing 863 runs from nine matches, averaging 54 with four hundreds.
To top it, the Bengaluru batter scored 779 runs from seven matches in the Vijay Hazare Trophy one-day tournament with five centuries, and his average stood at an astronomical 389.50.
Nair was not just knocking on the doors but he crashed through them with those performances, as his inclusion in the Indian team became a topic of national debate.
“That’s what he always wanted to do — score runs, get back to Team India. From Day 1 at Vidarbha camp, he would tell us that I have another 3-4 years of cricket left in me at the highest level. It’s glad that he finally managed to achieve it, and we are all proud of him,” Usman Gani, the Vidarbha coach, told PTI.
Nair’s stellar run helped Vidarbha bag the Ranji Trophy in the 2024-25 season, but unnoticed by many, it helped him come out of a dark cellar.
Nair was reborn. The confidence in his skills multiplied. He began to open up more to other players in the dressing room.
“I think the issue when he came to us (Vidarbha) was his apprehension over his abilities. But once he got a regular chance to play domestic cricket against quality opponents, the confidence returned.
“It can be safely said that he blossomed along with the team. He never looked like a stranger in the dressing room and we took extra care not to make him feel like an outsider as well. He just needed some big and consistent runs. He got it here along with a relaxed environment and it opened up him as a cricketer,” said Gani.
The only parallel to Nair’s exceptional comeback in the storied history of Indian cricket is VVS Laxman‘s stirring run in the 1999 domestic season.
Dropped from the Indian team, Laxman went back to Ranji Trophy and hammered 1415 runs from nine matches at an average of 108.8 with nine hundreds.
From that point, Laxman’s career took a ‘Very Very Special’ turn for the next decade or so.
Nair is at a very similar stage, and during the course of the five-match Test series in England, he will get a chance to front up to a familiar rival against whom he had made a triple hundred.
Can Nair touch those heights again? There would not be too many naysayers now.
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