Karun Nair was pivotal in India’s efforts to go into Stumps on Day 1 of the fifth Test between India and England without losing all of their wickets. Nair, whose contributions throughout the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy has left a lot to be desired, scored his only half-century outside of the unbeaten 303 in 2016 on a day in which India lost wickets in clumps at the other end. Kevin Pietersen, who worked with Nair in the 2025 Indian Premier League (IPL), said that the latter spent many hours talking to him about batting in England.
“So happy for Karun and how he’s stabilised India’s batting yesterday. He’s a tremendously hard worker on his game and we spent many hours talking about batting in England during the IPL. I’m hoping he gets a wonderful 100 today!” Pietersen said in a post on his X handle before start of play on Day 2. It hasn’t quite worked out the way the England captain wished for in the post, with Nair falling for 57 off 109 balls in just the third over of the day.
India ended up capitulating on Day 2, losing their last four wickets including that of Nair’s in just over five overs and being all out for 224 runs. England have since tightened their grip on the match with Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett blazing a 92-run partnership in just 78 balls.
Nair played eight matches for Delhi Capitals in IPL 2025, with Pietersen being the team’s mentor. He scored 198 runs at a strike rate of 172.17. This came after a bumper season in the Ranji Trophy in which he helped Vidarbha win the title and a ridiculous Vijay Hazare Trophy season in which he powered the team to the final by smashing a whopping 779 runs in nine matches at an average of 389.50 with five centuries and a half-century.
Pietersen’s revelation is only the latest in a slew of reports of Indian players using the IPL to prepare for the ongoing tour. At Rajasthan Royals, Yashasvi Jaiswal would spend so much time with his teammate and England captain Joe Root that they would start calling him ‘Joeswal’. Akash Deep, when at RCB, would relentlessly stalk his team’s main pacer, the Aussie star Josh Hazlewood for advice. Nitish Reddy would ask his captain at SRH, Aussie stalwart Pat Cummins, the secret of getting wickets in England. Delhi Capitals this year had Kevin Pietersen as the team mentor. Kuldeep Yadav didn’t let the opportunity go to waste.
