Karu Nair is set to make a comeback to the Indian team after eight long years, having last played in 2017 during a home series against Australia. The domestic batting stalwart was named in India’s 18-member squad announced earlier today for the upcoming high-profile five-match Test series against England, starting late June.
However, Nair’s inclusion has come at the cost of another promising talent – Sarfaraz Khan.
Sarfaraz made his debut last year against England when they visited India and impressed, amassing 200 runs while averaging at 50 which included three half-centuries. Against New Zealand later in the year, the 27-year-old registered his maiden Test ton. He next travelled to Australia as well for the Border Gavaskar Trophy but did not feature in any game and has now been dropped for the England tour.
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On the other hand, Karun Nair has previous experience of donning the Indian whites and has looked in tremendous form in the recent domestic season. Nair also have experience of playing county cricket which Sarfaraz doesn’t. Furthermore, the absence of Virat Kohli after his retirement tipped the scales more in favour of the experienced Nair to fill in the No.4 spot.
Echoing on the same lines, chief selector Ajit Agarkar also justified the reason behind the decision to opt for Nair over Sarfaraz.
He said, “Sometimes you just have to make good decisions. Sarfaraz, I know he got a 100 in the first Test and then didn’t get runs. Sometimes it’s decisions the team management takes. At the moment, Karun has scored heaps of runs in domestic, has played a bit of Test cricket, played a bit of county cricket. With Virat not there, clearly we’re lacking a bit of experience. We felt his experience could help.”
India squad for England Tests: Shubman Gill (capt), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (vc, wk), Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Sai Sudharsan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Arshdeep Singh
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