Just Focus On What You Can Control And What You Can Do With Your Batting - Karun Nair on Test Call

Indian National Cricket team discard Karun Nair made a strong mark in the Ranji Trophy quarterfinals sharing a match-winning partnership with Manish Pandey to take their team to the semifinals of the ongoing Ranji Trophy. Striving at 56 for four in pursuit of 186 on a challenging Bangalore pitch, Nair and Pandey carried their team home.

Speaking to CricketNext, Karun Nair credited his partner for making things easy for him. Pandey played a counter-attacking game while Nair looked to bat till the end which did the trick for Karnataka.

“Manish made batting easy for me by taking on the bowlers and I simply told myself that I have to keep batting through at the other end. The counter-attack also changed the minds of the bowlers and they were looking to save runs first,” Nair said.

It is important to contribute

Meanwhile, after the game, Manish Pandey revealed that Karun Nair was keen on getting a big knock. He also admitted that the team used his hunger as a template which in turn helped his side clinch a decisive victory. The right-handed batsman had a tumultuous season so far with a finger injury making him available for only four games. However now, Nair is keen to make this return of form count and contribute to the team’s success.

“For me, it’s important to be able to contribute to Karnataka and like the last game if I can contribute I am happy,” he said. “It’s about getting those chances and when they come by you have to make it count. All I can do is prepare well and look forward to the game and just do my bit in every sense and work hard. Study their bowlers and see how the other team is doing,” he added.

Selection not in my hands

However, the selectors decided to drop Karun Nair from the series against Windies, who warmed the benches in England. He didn’t get a single opportunity as his exclusion created a stir as Sunil Gavaskar slammed the selectors for not giving Nair enough opportunities. So far, Nair has played only six Tests for India scoring 374 runs with the highest score of an unbeaten 303 runs.

Nair, however, has taken a more philosophical view of the situation. He has spent time and talked about his game with India A coach Rahul Dravid.

“Just focus on what you can control and what you can do with your batting and your own game,” Nair says. “As long as you’re doing the process right there will come a time when everything will fall into place,” he concluded.