Karun Nair who has made an incredible comeback to the Indian Test squad after a gap of seven years has termed the 2022 season, where he was dropped from Karnataka Ranji side was the darkest phase of his career. The middle-order batsman, who is in line to start the first Test at Leeds, which would be his first since March 2017, said the 2022 phase was worse than the time he was dropped from the Indian side.
After scoring a triple century against England towards the end of 2016, Karun remained part of India’s Test squads but never played a Test since the final Test against Australia in 2017. During the 2018 tour of England, he warmed the bench in each of the five Tests with India flying in Hanuma Vihari as a replacement player and playing him straight away. From there on his struggles continued before Karnataka dropped him from all squads in 2022.
“In terms of incidents, I would say, it was quite a dark place at the end of 2022. Very emotional phase for me. I think the toughest time for me. Even tougher than 2018, or whatever, whenever that was,” Nair said during an interaction with R Ashwin on his Youtube channel.
Speaking about the time he was dropped from the India squad soon after scoring the triple-century, Karun lamented that he didn’t have big scores to show during the Test series against Australia that followed soon after the England series.
“Honestly, I couldn’t understand what was happening. Because after the 300 in , after the Australia series, I think the next series was in Sri Lanka in 2017. I wasn’t part of that squad either. And from then on, I couldn’t understand what was happening. Then I had to go back in domestic cricket. But if I look back and think that there is one side of me saying that ‘yes, I didn’t get too many opportunities’. But the other way I would also think is the four innings that I played against Australia, and I got a couple of starts. If I had just converted those starts into bigger scores, maybe I wouldn’t be in this position or had to have gone through that,” Karun said.
After moving to Vidarbha ahead of the 2023-24 season, Karun once again hit a purple patch, scoring consistently across formats. He scored 863 runs in Vidarbha’s Ranji winning campaign in 2024/25 season which earned him a recall to India’s Test squad for the tour of England. “I think at the moment, at least I am very grateful. Like you said, I have gotten past that complaining stage. Very grateful to be in the situation that I am and I just treat every day as something that’s given to me, and I am living my life and doing what I love,” Karun added.
