Follow UsKarun Nair’s comeback to the Indian red-ball side is nothing short of a fairytale. The 33-year-old, who has been threatening to make it back to the setup, accumulated over 1550 runs for Vidarbha. It was his stint with Vidarbha that forced the selectors to take a look at the batter after a successful Ranji Trophy 2024/25 campaign, where he scored 863 runs, averaging 53.94.
But there’s a good part of people in the country who believe that it was Nair’s dazzling run against Jasprit Bumrah in the IPL 2025, which triggered a comeback to the national side. It triggered the age-old debate of whether Indian Test selection should be made on the back of a good Ranji season or a good IPL season.
“I think it should be a mix of both, it should mainly be first-class cricket, and then a bit of IPL too. If these players can replicate their form from first-class cricket at the IPL level, it should count,” Nair told Ashwin on the latter’s YouTube channel.
“It shouldn’t be that they only play IPL and not first-class cricket, and get a chance in the Indian team. I think it should be a mix of both, but mainly focusing on first-class cricket, where you play on different conditions and surfaces,” he added.
However, almost a decade ago, things were very different for Nair, who, despite scoring a 300 against England, was dropped for India’s next Test assignment against Sri Lanka.
“Honestly, I couldn’t understand what was happening. After the 300 in Chennai, I played against Australia and then wasn’t part of the Sri Lanka series,” he recalled.
"I couldn’t understand what was happening. I had to go back to domestic cricket and score a lot of runs and then make a comeback for the England series. All I knew was that my name wasn’t there, I didn’t know how it wasn’t there,” he further added.
Nair felt that if he had converted his good starts against Australia at home into substantial scores, his life in the Indian whites would have been starkly different.
“One side of me felt that I didn’t get enough opportunities. But the other side felt that I had a chance against Australia to convert starts into big scores, and I missed my opportunity. I was just figuring out how I should go about things and what I should be doing. I couldn’t control what was running in my mind like how I’m able to today.”
The 33-year-old then made a swift comeback into the Indian setup a few months later for the England tour, away. However, as fate would have it, he was injured midway and was later ruled out of the series.
“I had a great Ranji Trophy campaign and made a comeback in the England series, but couldn’t get an opportunity because of the injury. My mind was just asking me what I had done wrong, and I didn’t feel I did anything wrong. All I thought about after that was how to get back to the Indian side.”