Karun Nair captured the hearts of cricket romantics even though his side -- th Delhi Capitals -- lost to the Mumbai Indians in a humdinger in IPL 2025 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Sunday, April 13, 2025.
The 33-year-old Karun, who was making a comeback to the glitzy league after 1,076 days, made it a memorable night by smashing a scintillating 40-ball 89, sending another reminder to national team selectors.
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He has been overlooked for the Indian team, particularly for the Champions Trophy, despite his strong performances in domestic cricket.
He has expressed frustration on social media and publicly stated his desire to return to the national side.
Despite being out of favour, he performed consistently in domestic cricket, scoring tons of runs for Vidarbha in all formats during the 2024-2025 season.
In the Ranji Trophy, he accumulated 863 runs in 16 innings to guide Vidarbha to their third title.
In the 50-over Vijay Hazare tournament, he was dismissed only once while aggregating 779 runs with the help of five hundreds at a staggering average of 389.50.
In the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament, he tallied 255 runs six innings at a strike rate of 177.
At the IPL 2025 mega auction, DC secured his services for just Rs 50 lakhs (Rs 5 million), 20 lakh (Rs 2 million) more than his base price. He repaid the faith shown in him with a free-flowing innings against a bowling attack featuring two of the best T20 bowlers in the world -- Jasprit Bumrah and Trent Boult.
It was his second IPL fifty in seven years, the last being against the Chennai Super Kings in 2017. His last IPL game came in 2022 for Rajasthan Royals against Kolkata Knight Riders.
Karun, who hit a Test triple century against England in 2016, did not get a chance to play in DC's first four matches. On Sunday, he came in as an Impact substitute for Mukesh Kumar after the fall of Jake Fraser-McGurk off the first ball of the innings.
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He was ruthless against the MI new ball bowlers, especially Bumrah, whom he smashed for 23 runs off 9 balls. He started with three boundaries off Boult's first over and since then there was no looking back.
He flicked Bumrah for a six, arguably the shot of the match, and earned admiration even from rival captain Hardik Pandya, who was seen slow clapping for that magnificent hit.
His 89 off 40 deliveries against MI was his highest score in the IPL, bettering his previous best of 83 runs against Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2016. It took just 22 balls for him to complete his 11th half-century.
It required some magic to rein Karun in, and Mitchell Santner did exactly that, cleaning him up with an unplayable delivery. Although his valiant effort went in vain, Karun has made a strong statement with this stupendous knock.
Photographs: BCCI
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