India faces choice dilemma over No. 3 spot

Karun Nair landed in England with the hope of reviving his Test profession. A dominating home season meant he obtained yet one more likelihood to show his mettle on the highest stage.

But three matches into the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, Karun has simply 131 runs to his identify and is the one top-four batter from both facet who has not scored a fifty.

Heading to Manchester for the fourth Test, the Indian workforce administration must resolve whether or not to provide him one other alternative or discover a special choice.

The legendary Farokh Engineer believes that B. Sai Sudharsan must be introduced again in at No. 3 at Old Trafford. The left-hander has spent the utmost variety of time on the nets since being benched after the opening Test in Leeds, the place he scored 30 within the second innings after falling for a duck on his debut.

“Karun has had his possibilities, however he couldn’t capitalise. That place is most vital, and he hasn’t even had a fifty. Since there aren’t too many choices accessible, convey Sai Sudharsan in. Being a left-hander, he may come in useful,” Engineer instructed The Hindu.

“You dropped him after only one sport. It is vital to again a younger participant and provides him an extended rope,” Engineer added.

To his credit score, Karun has gotten off to first rate begins at No. 3 and sometimes succeeded in taking the shine off the brand new ball. The 33-year-old hasn’t appeared nervous, nor did the surfaces on provide hassle him. But, even then, huge scores have eluded him, leading to a mean of 21.83.

As per Cricviz knowledge, at No.3, Karun’s false-short per cent is 20.9, the fourth-lowest for any top-order batter on this collection. Only Ok.L. Rahul, Shubman Gill and Joe Root rank higher than him on this metric.

Karun, although, has been at fault for not being aggressive sufficient — 43.9 per cent of all his photographs have been of the defensive variety; solely Sai Sudharsan has had an even bigger share of such strokes.

Karun’s dot ball proportion has been 73.8, the third-highest amongst all top-four batters on this collection. Going on the defensive hasn’t fairly helped him. While India’s batting, barring the middle-order collapse within the second innings at Lord’s, has appeared fairly strong, No. 3 stays a giant fear.

Since 2020, India has tried 11 totally different gamers in that slot. It’s vital to have stability in such a key place, one thing that was supplied for almost a decade by Cheteshwar Pujara.

The Saurashtra batter amassed 6529 runs at a mean of 44.41 from 155 innings at No. 3, the second-most by any batter in that place since his Test debut. While Gill appeared set to be his successor, having performed 17 video games at No. 3 and scored 1019 runs at 37.74 between 2021 and 2025, he has since dropped all the way down to No. 4.

India’s struggles with the one-down place although aren’t in isolation. Nearly all Test-playing nations are looking for a long-term occupant at No. 3. It stays to be seen if India sticks with Karun or reverts to Sai Sudharsan.