Nagpur: Vidarbha batting mainstay Karun Nair on Saturday put the ball in the selectors’ court regarding a strong case for his India call-up after his ninth century of the season, saying “I’m not the right person to ask” the question.
Nair struck an unbeaten 132 against Kerala to help Vidarbha extend their overall lead to 286 runs in the Ranji Trophy final, his fourth century in the red-ball competition which took his tally to 860 runs at 57.33.
Nair, one of the only two Indians in history to have scored triple hundreds in Test cricket, was also in red-hot form in the 50-over Vijay Hazare Trophy wherein he struck 779 runs in only nine matches with five centuries and one fifty at a mind-boggling average of 389.50.
Nair played six Tests and two ODIs for India after making his international debut in 2016. He scored an unbeaten 303 (381) in his third Test, against England at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, which is still the third-highest score for a maiden century in the format.
Failures in his next four innings and competition from the likes of Ajinkya Rahane and Hanuma Vihari led to his dropping. He has yet to play for India since.
“I’m not the right person to ask. I cannot comment on that. I have to just say that I have to keep performing in every game that I get and if it happens, it happens. I have to do my job to the best,” Nair told the reporters at the VCA Stadium after the close of play on Day Four, as quoted by PTI.
After scoring his century, Nair, usually not a man of celebrations, put up nine fingers towards the Vidarbha dressing room and soaked their applause.
“I’d been speaking about it before this match that I’ve got eight (centuries), if I score another one, I’ll show nine,” he added. “I was just speaking to some of our sidearm throwers, Yash Thorat, who always help us with batting and everything. We were speaking and I said to him that if I do score a hundred, I’ll show him the nine, so it was discussed.”
Nair made his domestic debut for Karnataka. But after over a decade of service, he moved to Vidarbha for a season-long contract in 2023.
There have been murmurs about his future. He recently spoke about how he was in conversations with the Kerala state team before the Vidarbha move.
But when asked about his future on Saturday, he remained non-commital.
“Let this season end first,” he quipped. “I had joined for this season. Obviously, I want to play but there is a lot of time left. First let’s get past tomorrow, a lot of matches are coming up and we will see,” he added.
