A near-flawless unbeaten 186 against England Lions has put Karun Nair in firm contention for reclaiming the Test whites he last wore eight years ago. A disclaimer is needed that the set of England Lions’ medium-pace firm he encountered in the unofficial Test in Canterbury were not the nastiest or craftiest, the conditions becoming excessively batting friendly as the day wore on and the sun pounded down. But he showed the broader requisites to prosper in the series as India A ended the day on 409/3.
He is no stranger to batting in English climes, having spent multiple stints with Northamptonshire. The experience shone through as he etched a typical hundred in these conditions, conforming to the well-worn tenets of giving the first hour to the seamers, under grey skies, the ball nipping both ways, before making hay under the blazing sun. A breakdown of his hundred is instructive: the first 50 runs consumed 85 balls; the second took 70 and the third 47. The last 36 came off 43 deliveries.
The strokes were exquisite, especially the cover drives, a fatal stroke in England and its secure execution the telltale sign of a batsman’s comfort. The big takeaways of his batting came at the start of his innings, when he exhibited the technical competence to survive the late-moving ball. He stood a couple of strides outside the off-stump, defended close to the body, late and with soft hands and seldom reached out for the ball.
The 33-year-old with a triple hundred against England had an interesting method to negotiate the away-swinging ball, opening the face of the bat slightly and playing with the swing, even if the ball landed in line with the stumps. At first sight, it felt he had edged, but replays confirmed he was gently gliding the ball in correspondence with the direction of the swing. He left judiciously too, not so much shouldering arms as taking the bat away from the line of the ball at the last moment, like his former Karnataka colleague KL Rahul. Only late in the innings, when he was on 89, that he offered his a chance, when he nibbled at a straight ball in the corridor, only for the second slip to shell it.
Interestingly, the nipbackers interrogated him more. The bustling Zaman Akhter cut him in half with a devious back-bender that the bowler and the chorus gang behind the stumps were certain Nair had nicked, in the 20th over of the game. But the umpire remained unconvinced, and Nair tightened up his forward defence, and shrunk the space between his bat and pad. His whole set-up is hardwired to negate the threat of the out-swinger, a side-on stance and the weight of the initial stride on the heels of the front foot.
But the aberration and the dropped catch aside, he was impenetrable against an effervescent yet limited bunch of bowlers. Left-arm seamer Josh Hull was the liveliest, purchasing zip, lift and swing with the new ball. His in-swinger trapped Abhimanyu Easwaran on his pad. Later, operating from around the stumps, he ejected Sarfaraz Khan, caught down the leg-side eight runs away from a stroke-laden hundred. The batsman from Mumbai, fitter than before but ignored for the Test squad, cursed himself, as there was nothing that fussed him. He was brutal on the spinners, sweeping and clubbing them mercilessly. When the seamers probed him with short balls, he cut and pulled assertively and once ramped Akhter over the wicket-keeper’s head. But a casual moment undid him.
Yashasvi Jaiswal’s 24 off 55 balls was a mix of streaky fours, leg-side dazzle, a life on zero and a gruesome end. In England, the tussle could be as much as with swing and seam, as with one’s mind and instincts. Jaiswal lost this, whereas Nair reined in those urges and put a firm stride torwards reclaiming the Test whites.
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First impressions
Abhimanyu Easwaran: He was comfortable defending the hard and good length balls, but when the ball was pitched up and swung, he turned tentative when defending. In the end, a Josh Hull in-swinger nabbed him in front.
Yashasvi Jaiswal: The left-hander got a reprieve second ball, the extra bounce and movement procuring an edge. But he did not make full use of it. The right-arm bowler bowling from over the stumps and slanting the ball away from him repeatedly troubled him, as he kept stabbing at those.
Sarfaraz Khan: After the bedding-in phase, where he edged and missed a few, his feet crease-tied, he was largely secure. It benefited that the surface was benign for much of his innings, as he prospered with an array of fours, chiefly through the third man region using the bowlers’ pace.
Dhruv Jurel: Initial strife aside, he batted briskly, in his typical busy ways. He was delightful on the back-foot; hooking, punching on the back-foot and upper-cutting.