Karun Nair is back to rewrite an IPL story that once looked dead

Twelve years ago, at a ground where he had spent a good part of his domestic career, Karun Nair made his IPL debut under Virat Kohli. The star-cast was glittery, right from the top: Gayle and Dilshan opening from one side, Ponting and Tendulkar from the other.

At the end of it all, another IPL debutant stole the show with a three-wicket haul: Jasprit Bumrah.

Karun was Bumrah’s third victim that night, beaten on the pads by an angling ball just like Kohli was.

In fact, Nair and Bumrah even made their T20 debuts on the same day in 2013, albeit in different matches of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.

Both made their India debuts months apart in 2016, but have had such contrasting journeys since. One, an all-time great bowler, the other, a promising batter who lost his way.

Their paths collided again in the 2025 IPL. Karun smashed him for 26 off 9.

It was Karun’s first IPL game in three years. He’s never been a headliner in the IPL: as a capped Indian batter capable of opening or floating in the middle order, Karun did get his share of chances. Yet, he never seemed to be in contention for an India T20I spot, played three ODIs in Zimbabwe back in 2016 but never after, and endured one of the most contrasting Test careers you’d ever see.

His most busy IPL years roughly coincided with his limited international time, but the chances extinguished thereafter.

By 2022, he had even lost his place in the Karnataka side, a team he once captained. “Dear cricket, give me one more chance,” he tweeted.

By that time, he’d become a largely forgotten story for Indian cricket, and a regular in “what-if” discussions.

Also read: Karun Karun on Test comeback: 'If I could do it then, I can do it now for sure'

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“He had been bothering me for a while,” Hemang Badani, Delhi Capitals head coach, said after Karun’s first IPL game in three years. “‘When am I going to get a game? Will I get this one?’ Even with nets; ‘Can I have a little more time in the middle?’ He had been itching to play."

It is not surprising why. Karun hadn’t played an IPL game since 2022, with no takers across two auctions. And, between 2019 and 2022, he played a total of eight matches.

“The IPL is a different beast altogether,” Karun told Wisden.com last year. “Sometimes it's difficult [to get back] once you go off the radar, it's difficult for you to get back into that XI”.

Karun’s red-ball record and Test aspirations are quite clear, but as a T20 batter, his career has been a mixed-bag.

Also read: Karun Nair’s maiden County Championship century marks another step on long road back to recognition

A look at his overall IPL record doesn’t really make a great impression. A strike-rate of 131 seems to be from a time gone by. When you see him bat in full swing, you can’t help but wonder the damage he can cause.

Karun Nair in the IPL

Karun has always been technically compact: high-elbow, quick movement of the feet, clear and well-defined strokes. Against spin, he had always been good at sweeping (both grounded and slog) as well as reverse-sweeping.

Against pace, for anything between length and slightly short, he prefers cross-batted shots. He uses his wrists extremely well, especially for aerial extra cover drives, and digging out full balls past point. One of Karun’s biggest strengths is gauging the ball early and adjusting himself.

However, Karun doesn’t always play the enforcer in the format, which made it tricky to determine his best position. He didn’t seem to be quick enough for the powerplay, nor did he accelerate rapidly in the middle order. He could just switch off on days, and the inconsistency would hurt.

Karun Nair's IPL strike-rate

Karun isn’t someone who goes for the kill from ball one. As an opener in the IPL, his strike rate of 141 is better than his overall IPL strike rate, but on certain days, especially when the batting around him misfired, Karun would resort to playing the accumulator’s role.

That became a problem with the teams he played for.

Karun spent a good amount of his IPL time for Delhi Capitals (or Delhi Daredevils) and Kings XI Punjab (or Punjab Kings) and his stints have coincided with some of the worst times for IPL’s two perennial underachievers.

Performance of IPL teams Karun played for

From 2016 to 2020, his team never finished higher than sixth out of eight. Both teams were riddled with batting and leadership issues, but Karun himself was quite inconsistent and slow with his showings.

In 2016, he struck at 118 at No.3 in eight innings for the Daredevils, and as low as 91.35 in six innings in 2017.

In a team that had Sanju Samson, Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer and Sam Billings, those numbers stick out like sore thumbs. Also, by then, young Indian top-order batters like Prithvi Shaw, Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan had emerged in the IPL.

The middle order push that didn’t last long

With demands changing at the top, Karun was tried in the middle order.

Overall, he’s batted 41 times in positions 4 to 7, but struck only at 124. The 2018 season was his best: he operated in the middle order and finished as Punjab’s third-highest run-getter, while scoring at 136.

Then again, a brand of young Indian middle-order batters came by, who would operate at much higher strike-rates, leaving Karun with little chances post 2019. The IPL itself has progressed rapidly since then – the average runs per over were 8.41 in 2019, and 9.56 in 2024.

For Karun to succeed, he had to score quicker. For that, he himself seemed to prefer playing at the top. In the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, he primarily bats in the top four. In fact, his SMAT strike-rate in the middle order (Nos 4 to 7) is actually 119. In 11 matches as captain, he batted in the top three 8 out of 10 times.

However, for a Karnataka team that wasn’t spoilt for choice when it came to top-order batters – Mayank Agarwal, Devdutt Padikkal, Manish Pandey and R Samarth all tussled for places when available – Karun had to be pushed down, and eventually couldn’t get a place.

Coming back through the top

With the time away from IPL, Karun didn’t seem to have changed anything fundamentally in his batting. “It's just about being confident in being able to play those shots more frequently”, Karun told Wisden. Closer to the IPL, he said he had added a few more shots, and was looking to execute them more efficiently.

“At the moment, it's just about finding a way to get back into that level, and then I'm sure that, you know, with the skills that I possess, that I can do well for whichever team I play for, and contribute to the team winning” Karun had said months before the IPL auction, where Capitals procured him.

The move to Vidarbha actually allowed him to bat at the top again, getting space around lesser-known names. Across 2023 and 2024, he batted as opener or No.3: striking at 165. Instead of trying to turn towards an accumulator’s role at the top, Karun seems to be now taking on the run-scoring onus himself, rarely switching off.

Even at the Maharaja T20 Cup, a local 20-over tournament, Karun, leading Mysuru Warriors, batted exclusively at three, finishing with the title, 560 runs at 56, and a strike-rate of 181.

The form is an extension of his white-ball approach: Karun appears freer, backing his shots more, while looking to bat in the top three. Towards the end of his Karnataka stint, he was batting as low as No.5 in List A cricket. Last season at Vidarbha, he was kept at No.3. The result? A strike-rate of 124 in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, where he averaged a scarcely believable 389.50 from eight innings, including five centuries.

Accessing more areas

“I told myself to take my time, play my normal shots, and improvise only when needed,” Karun said after his knock against Mumbai Indians. That 40-ball 89 was his best IPL score in 69 innings, also the best strike-rate he had managed across his T20 career.

Observing more closely, he still clears himself away from the stumps when accessing the offside, especially the cover region more, and backs his cross-batted shots. However, he seems to have tuned himself more to play the ball slightly later, and not over-hit it like he sometimes used to.

What it has done is given him more scoring opportunities: he was always good at the pull, for instance, but he would invariably play it in front of square. Now, he seems to be using the area between square leg and fine leg a lot more effectively. Instead of going on the front-foot, he’s been taking the extra millisecond and staying steady, picking deliveries off length right over his waist.

A sample of it was seen when he picked up Jasprit Bumrah for a six, using his angle to play the ball towards long leg. Not long after, he did something similar to Hardik Pandya. Even though he hit four cover drives for four, over 61 per cent of his runs came behind the square on both sides.

Comparing it to some of his other fifties in the IPL:

The rest of his template remains the same. He can always conjure unorthodox shots – his paddle scoop off Pandya shouldn’t be surprising for those who have watched him. In 2018, he moved to the leg-side and reverse-swat a full Dwayne Bravo delivery over backward point. As far as reverse-sweeps go, he was doing those against Sunil Narine back in 2015.

After years of doubt, Karun has found the backing of Vidarbha, and the long run has resulted in heavy runs. At the IPL, he won’t get the same freedom – even the comeback came only thanks to an injury to Faf du Plessis. Next game, he was run out for zero, a sudden twist to a comeback story that was just starting to play out.

There's surely more to come: a well-oiled Karun, fresh from a rich run of form, could just be rewriting his IPL career.

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