India and Vidarbha batter Karun Nair is going through a dream batting form at the moment. Nair is breaking all sorts of records in domestic cricket and is knocking hard on the doors of selection for India’s squad in the Champions Trophy 2025.
Nair has finally opened up after his brilliant performances in the ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy, India’s domestic 50-over tournament. He still dreams of playing for India one day and it keeps motivating him to perform well.
The 33-year-old just wants to focus on one innings at a time and keep performing at every opportunity that he gets. He believes that hard work is the only way to succeed and hasn’t done anything differently so far.
Also read: ICC Champions Trophy 2025: Kuldeep Yadav all but confirms his selection
“The dream is always to play for the country” – Karun Nair
Karun Nair spoke about his dream to play international cricket for India and wants to focus on every innings. He wants to do everything that is in his control and doesn’t want to think too far ahead.
“The dream is always to play for the country. So, yes, the dream is still alive. That’s the reason we play this game, to play for your country. So, the one and only goal was to play for the country,” Karun was quoted as saying by PTI.
“I think this is my third comeback (laughs). And I need to keep doing what I am doing at the moment. Keep scoring runs whenever I can in every single game that I play. That’s the most that I can do. Everything else is not in my control,” he added.
“But till it (selection) happens, it’s just a dream. It’s still not there yet. But again, like I said, I would like to focus on one innings at a time,” the Vidarbha batter revealed.
“I’ve not done anything differently” – Karun Nair
Karun Nair was further asked about the things that he has changed to improve his performance. He responded that only hard work had gotten him into this situation and that he hadn’t done anything differently. He always had that belief in him and wanted to be in a positive frame of mind.
“I’ve not done anything differently. There is no secret. I think it’s just years of hard work and persistence, you know, the coming together of all of it. And probably you can say, taking each day as a new one and making sure that I respect every single innings that I play,” Karun said.
When he was in poor form, he started from scratch and worked hard again. He further spoke about having a positive thought process even when he wasn’t in good form with the bat.
“I will be lying if I say I was not afraid. I think anyone would have those feelings. But I never had the thought that my career would end. I just had the thought of where it is going? What am I doing? How has this happened?” Karun noted.
“It takes a while for you to come out of that phase and to understand what is happening and then what you are supposed to do. So, I told myself that I need to start from zero again. And give myself a few years and see where it goes. And then I can decide what to do. So, that was my thought process,” he elaborated.
Karun Nair in Vijay Hazare Trophy
Karun Nair has scored 752 runs in eight matches at a staggering average of 752 and a strike rate of 125.96. The right-hander has struck 5 hundreds and 1 fifty in the seven innings he has batted so far in the tournament.
Nair is the highest run-scorer of the tournament so far. He also holds the record for the most runs scored without being dismissed in List A cricket. His powerful performances hold him in good shape to be considered for India’s squad for the Champions Trophy 2025.
Karun Nair has played 6 Tests and 2 ODIs for India. He has scored 374 runs at an average of 62.33 in Tests with one triple-century to his name. In two ODIs, he scored 46 runs at an average of 23.