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England Lions vs. India A 409 for 3 (Nair 186*, Sarfaraz 92, Jurel 82 *, Hull 2-51).
When everyone was caught up with IPL playoff battles, Nair’s Test Comeback took center stage as Karun Nair bolstered his case for India’s first Test against England, starting June 20, 2025, in Leeds.
As he eased his way to his 24th first-class century, Nair displayed a variety of strokes, including cuts, upper cuts, steers, punched drives, pulls, inside-out drives, and multiple reverse sweeps. He finished the day undefeated at 186.
After India A’s Captian – Abhimayu Easwaran, Nair arrived early in the morning. Josh Hull, a left-arm fast bowler, trapped captain and opener Abhimanyu Easwaran plumb for eight in the sixth over. Nair warmed up to the conditions and the bowling as a cloudy and a little chilly first hour gave way to a picture-perfect sunny afternoon.
Before Yashasvi Jaiswal made a mistaken stroke approximately 30 minutes prior to lunch, Nair was not the center of attention. But before deciding to try a wild slog against a length delivery from Eddie Jack, Jaiswal, who has a tendency to make big hundreds, appeared to be enjoying his first day of this lengthy England tour.
Nair was only 26 runs before the lunch with his partner Sarfaraz Khan who is also a future ssest to India. They both mentally targeted the England Lions, the opponents who chose to field.
As the inexperienced Lions bowling, who have a combined total of six Test caps, was evident throughout, both batters did not let go of any scoring opportunities, which came often.
Nair has a compact base in his stance and utilised a lot of wristwork in his batting. That allows him to score easily on both sides of the pitch, but most of his runs on Friday came in front of square on the off side.
As the Lions seamers attempted to entice him to go for his strokes in the hopes that the ball would seam away and take an edge, He in particular took advantage of the large empty pocket between point and mid-off made his test comeback. Nair’s test comeback continued to lunge forward to punch square drives and cover drives, which was unfortunate for Lions. Additionally, Nair quickly got on the back foot to steer, cut, and uppercut to pick easy boundaries when the ball was short and of an acceptable length.
Additionally, there was the occasional moment of distraction. Nair was lucky today to not to get nicked when he lashed hard to cut at an angled delivery from Hull on 62. Emilio Gay gave Nair with a sitter at second slip in the over before tea, but he did nick a seaming delivery from Ajeet Singh Dale on 89.
Nair calmly raised his bat towards the dressing room and the healthy crowd that crowded the St Lawrence Ground to celebrate the milestone shortly after his return from the break.
Nair persuaded the selectors and an Indian think tank to include him in the 18-man Test squad for the five-Test series because of the amount of runs he has scored for Vidarbha, the team he joined as a professional a few years ago.
Conclusion
The 33-year-old Nair last participated in a Test match in 2017. He only became India’s second triple-centurion in his third Test match, against England in Chennai in 2016. It was his first century. The selectors felt that Nair’s Test Comeback could contribute experience given the retirements of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli if he was selected in the starting lineup for the England series, which is India’s first in the new World Test Championship cycle (2025–27).
