Karun Nair – the man who manifested cricket’s second chance

After Karun Nair’s spectacular entry into IPL 2025 with a 40-ball 89 against a top Mumbai Indians attack, his old tweet from December 10, 2022 picked up more traction across social media. “Dear cricket, give me one more chance,” Nair wrote, crossing his fingers.

That tweet was not just an empty hope expressed by a player whose best days were behind him. It was more an announcement of a player ready to grab his second opportunity.

Nair made his way back into public consciousness with his stupendous 2024-25 season for Vidarbha, and solidified that with his first match for Delhi Capitals in IPL 2025, but he has been on a steady rise for the last two-plus years in white-ball cricket, much before his exploits started grabbing headlines.

Just look at his stats till the end of 2022, and then since January 1, 2023.

Karun Nair – before and after his tweet

	Matches	Runs	Average	Strike Rate
List A till December 2022	90	2119	30.71	80.39
List A from January 2023	17	1009	144.14	116.11
T20s till December 2022	150	2989	25.12	131.15
T20s from January 2023	14	562	43.23	171.87

You can see the stark jump in his white-ball stats from 2023 onwards. Till December 2022, Nair was a good, but not great, limited-overs player. From 2023, he has vaulted into absolutely elite category. Even when he was asking cricket for a second chance, he had put in the work to grab that second chance.

The takedown of Jasprit Bumrah

Perhaps nothing announced just how prepared Nair was than his breathtaking assault on Jasprit Bumrah, undoubtedly world cricket’s best bowler. Bumrah may have been only two matches into his comeback and not at his best, but even a lesser version of Bumrah is generally too difficult to handle for ordinary batsmen. And Nair was playing his first match in the tournament, having sat on the bench for DC’s first four games in IPL 2025.

He hit his first ball off Bumrah inside out for four, and then never stopped. In nine balls from Bumrah, he plundered two sixes, three fours, and a total of 26 runs. There are days when teams can’t take 26 from Bumrah’s entire quota – Nair did it in nine balls.

“Obviously I was confident. I was playing, I was in the flow and I didn’t want to stop the flow,” Nair explained. “It was about picking the right balls and playing to the areas that I wanted to play. He’s the best bowler in world cricket, so I had to be very watchful of where he’s going to bowl. I just backed myself.”

Solving Delhi Capitals’ top-order problem

DC had been put in a great position by Nair’s blitz, but in a thrilling match, they ended up 12 runs short of MI’s 205 for 5. Nair had the most impactful performance in the game, but he shrugged it off with, “How much ever we perform, if the team doesn’t win, it doesn’t have any value.”

However, the way Nair took on Bumrah, Boult, Chahar, Hardik and Santner at least showed DC that it wouldn’t be wise to keep him on the bench any longer. Jake Fraser-McGurk has been having a torrid IPL, while Faf du Plessis is battling injuries. Nair is a readymade top-order bat who can fit into their starting XI, and he showed he’s more than ready for the challenge.

“I had the confidence that I’ve played before and I know how it’s going to be,” Nair said of playing an IPL game after three years. He also batted down suggestions that he had made any radical changes or improvements in his game.

“I don’t think my strike rate has ever been low. It’s always been high, but yes, I can agree that it’s a bit higher now,” Nair said. “In the last two seasons, I’ve been batting well. I haven’t changed anything. But I’ve obviously worked hard to play the shots that I want to play and execute that well.”

Maybe it is true that Nair hasn’t made any drastic alterations. The shots he was hitting could all be part of a coaching tutorial. Maybe, as he said, it’s about executing better.

Whatever the secret of Nair’s resurgence is, he has shown that it’s not just restricted to domestic cricket. He can take on the best, and win, in the IPL too. He might have asked cricket for a second chance, but it’s he who has manifested it with his batting.