{"id":193997,"date":"2025-06-18T09:05:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T09:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/193997\/"},"modified":"2025-06-18T09:05:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T09:05:10","slug":"ind-vs-eng-karun-nair-recalls-2018-snub-by-virat-kohli-and-ravi-shastri-it-felt-like-someone-had-hit-me-into-the-ground-cricket-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/193997\/","title":{"rendered":"IND vs ENG: Karun Nair recalls 2018 snub by Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri \u2014 ‘It felt like someone had hit me into the ground’ | Cricket News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"INDCANTERBURY, ENGLAND – MAY 30: Karun Nair of India A plays a shot during the four day match between England Lions and India A at The Spitfire Ground on May 30, 2025 in Canterbury, England. (Photo by Steve Bardens\/Getty Images) On Friday at Leeds, Karun Nair could end his eight-year wait and make a comeback into India’s Test XI.It will be a full-circle moment for the 33-year-old, who was snubbed during the 2018 India tour of England by the then Team India management \u2014 captain Virat Kohli<\/a> and coach Ravi Shastri<\/a> \u2014 as he spent the entire five-match series on the bench.Before the fifth Test, there was a chance he could get a game, but the team management and selectors flew in Hanuma Vihari<\/a> \u2014 who was not part of the original squad \u2014 from India and handed him a Test debut.<\/p>\n

Poll<\/p>\n

Should Karun Nair be included in the Indian Test XI against England?<\/p>\n

The snub took a toll on Nair, whose form plummeted to the point where, in 2022, he was dropped from Karnataka’s squad across all three formats.”It felt like someone had hit me into the ground and I didn\u2019t know where to go,” Nair told Mail Sport about his 2018 experience in England.Nair further revealed how he went on a shopping spree after being told he wasn’t playing, and how lonely he felt at that moment.”I\u2019ll never forget that hour when the news hit me. I didn\u2019t 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 \u2014 why am I waiting for things to happen when I have no control?” he said.”I got a pair of Louis Vuitton shoes because I could. I\u2019d never done that before. For me, it was never about money. My interest was purely cricket and wanting to play for India.<\/p>\n

Mentally tuned and match ready: Karun Nair makes impactful IPL return<\/p>\n

“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 and bags.”There was a game left, but that was my tour done. It was just a case of getting through it and going home. Every day was brutal. I wasn\u2019t picked after that,” said Nair.Seven years down the line, he is again on English shores. He has earned his way back with heaps of runs \u2014 be it in domestic cricket or during his two county stints.His resilience has been hailed by current Team India coach Gautam Gambhir as well.\u201cNo matter the runs you have got \u2014 most importantly, that never-say-die attitude, that never-give-up attitude is something that has got you back into the team. That is something which is inspiring for the entire world,\u201d Gambhir said in a video on BCCI TV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CANTERBURY, ENGLAND – MAY 30: Karun Nair of India A plays a shot during the four day match…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101],"tags":[79130,1406,79128,79126,79131,67774,79129,10791,79,79127,16,15,4221],"class_list":{"0":"post-193997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-bcci-tv","9":"tag-cricket","10":"tag-hanuma-vihari","11":"tag-ind-vs-eng-series-2018","12":"tag-karnataka-cricket","13":"tag-karun-nair","14":"tag-oxford-street-shopping","15":"tag-ravi-shastri","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-test-cricket-comeback","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-virat-kohli"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114703573145606388","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}