Karun Nair (Getty Image)

The lion-hearted cricketer made a famous comeback in England but his middling returns with the bat may go against him CHENNAI: "Dear cricket, give me one more chance." Karun Nair's desperate plea struck an immediate chord with those who had seen the hard-working middle-order batter go through the grind of domestic cricket, year after year.

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Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW! The Indian team management, often known to be slightly impatient with a lot of things, also seemed to notice, making an exception for the 33-year-old for the five-Test series in England. The Karnataka cricketer, who will return to his home state next season after excelling for Vidarbha, got four Tests in England, batting at positions 3, 5 and 6. His fighting 57 in the first innings at the Oval, when the ball was doing quite a bit, played a significant role in India getting a respectable score. But in a series which has been dominated by Indian batters, a total of 205 runs at an average of 25.67 aren't exactly the returns that Nair may have been hoping for ahead of the series.

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But then, Sai Sudharsan, who made his debut in the series and is being seen as a long-term prospect, too got 140 runs in six innings. One feels that the team management has decided to persist with Sai as the long-term No. 3 for now, unless something goes drastically wrong. With Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar excelling with the bat, there's only one spot left in the middle-order when India play West Indies at home in two months' time, and there are contenders for that spot. While Sarfaraz Khan has been with the team for a while and has lost weight to look in fine physical shape, Shreyas Iyer is gunning for a red-ball return. The Mumbai batter, who had a fine IPL, is excellent against spin and it is going to be a tough call for the team management and the selection committee when they sit down to discuss Nair's Test future. Former India opener Deep Dasgupta, who was in England as part of the commentary panel, feels Nair isn't exactly a No. 3 batter for challenging overseas conditions. "His feet don't move enough to be successful at No. 3. In that case, the options become limited and when it's a choice for Nos. 6 or 7, there are too many options. It's not just Shreyas and Sarfaraz. Even Axar Patel or Nitish Reddy can come into the picture depending on the nature of the pitches India are playing on," Dasgupta told TOI from London.

‘Vulnerable against the short ball’ Devang Gandhi, a former national selector and an opening batter himself, too feels there is a serious technical deficiency in Karun's game that may go against him. "At the point of release of the ball from the bowler's hand, Karun's front foot is still in the air. That makes him vulnerable against the short ball, as we found out in this series. There's no doubt he has scored some tough runs, but it has to be taken into account that he couldn't convert the starts that he got," Gandhi said. According to him, the selection process sometimes becomes more of a "case of elimination than selection", and Nair could find it difficult to retain his spot. In such a scenario, the ball could entirely be in the team management's court. It will be very interesting to see how coach Gautam Gambhir looks at Nair's contributions in the series. The 57 at the Oval was indication enough that in Indian conditions against lesser attacks, Karun will get runs. But the call that Gambhir has to take is whether he has seen enough in Nair's game that will help him get runs in New Zealand next year or the WTC Final in England, if India go that far. "We have a core in place and the team should now be built with an eye on the difficult away series in future," Dasgupta said. If that's the case, Nair may well have played his last Test for India. But even if that's true, the half-century at the Oval will never be forgotten by those who have savoured the comeback of this lion-hearted cricketer.

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