Karun Nair has revealed that he struggled to get a County contract in 2023 after going unsold in the IPL auction and opted to play village club cricket with Burbage & ER in East Wiltshire. He said in an interview on Monday that the games were played every Saturday and his teammates would often ask him ‘why the f**k’ was he playing at that level, when he was more than good enough for the County Championship.
This was one of the lowest phases for Nair, who had been through a dip in form since being dropped from the Indian team in 2017, and had also been left out of the Karnataka state side. The middle-order batter was already desperate to prove himself in England — where he was dropped midway through a tour without getting a chance in 2018 — and he took whatever he got.
“I kept trying and no one offered me a contract. After 2018, I always wanted to show that I could play in England," he told Mail Sport. “From where I was, it was so tough mentally. I’d wake up asking myself how I’d ended up here but I had to suck it up and play and train. It’s like going from playing Champions League to below non-league in the space of a few years. Other players were telling me I should be playing county cricket and asking me why the f* am I playing here," he added.
Nair also recalled his immediate feelings after being replaced by Hanuma Vihari in the fourth Test of the England tour, saying he went straight to Oxford Street and bought extremely expensive things to try and make himself feel better.
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’It felt like someone had hit me into the ground and I didn’t know where to go,’ he said. ‘I’ll never forget that hour when the news hit me. I didn’t know what to do or who to talk to so I went for a walk all the way to Oxford Street and started to buy anything and everything . I was never the sort of guy who was after expensive stuff but it dawned on me that why am I waiting for things to happen when I have no control. ‘I got a pair of Louis Vuitton shoes because I could. I’d never done that before. For me, it was never about money. My interest was purely cricket and wanting to play for India. But I needed to make myself feel happy and I stupidly thought that would make me happy. I went up and down Oxford Street buying whatever I felt like and came back with bags after bags," he added.
After eight years of toil, Nair got a call-up for the upcoming Tendulkar-Anderson Trophy in England. He’s expected to start the first Test in Headingley on June 20.
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