Will Karun Nair play 4th Test vs England? Assistant coach opens up

Team India assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate has stated that while the No.3 batter Karun Nair’s rhythm and temperament are good enough, the Indian team management is expecting a lot more runs from him in the Manchester Test, scheduled to start on Wednesday, July 23.

Notably, Nair got off to decent starts in the ongoing England tour. However, he couldn’t convert them into bigger knocks. His scores in the current series read 0, 20, 31, 26, 40, and 14. Though he started the series at No.6, he was later promoted to No.3, taking Sai Sudharsan’s spot.

Nair, who came into the Test arena after a gap of eight long years, could score only 131 runs from six innings at an average of 21.83 on the England tour. However, the assistant coach has asserted that the team is in good spirits despite trailing the series by 1-2.

"That might be counter-intuitive when you're 2-1 down in the series. But we feel like the guys have been excellent for large parts of the series. The repetition of losing lots of wickets in a very short space of time has obviously been the key feature of the two losses. Probably both times in Headingley and obviously overnight and first thing in the morning at Lord's, we feel cost us the game was losing six wickets for 40 again. But if you look at it individually, if you look at the run tally of all the batters they're all batting nicely," Ryan told reporters.

"Even someone like Karun, we feel his rhythm is good, his tempo is good. We want more runs from the three. But the message is mainly, let's really focus on what we've done well and tidy up the little things that have cost us results, essentially," ten Doeschate added.

Team India will next take on England in the fourth Test of the five-match series, scheduled to start on Wednesday at Old Trafford in Manchester.

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