Karun Nair made an impressive County debut for Northamptonshire on September 10 at Edgbaston, Birmingham. Nair scored 78 runs on Day 1 against Warwickshire in County Championship Division One 2023.
Nair came in to bat after opener Hasan Azad and Northamptonshire skipper Luke Procter departed for single-digit scores. Nair was cautious against Oliver Hannon-Dalby. He scored his first run off the 23rd ball he faced in the innings.
Nair hit his first boundary off Ed Barnard. After a cover drive, Nair started to score quickly. On the other end, Emilio Gay got to his half-century from 78 deliveries. The Karnataka batter survived a close call as well when an inside edge missed the stumps and raced towards the boundary.
He reached his half-century in the 39th over off 103 balls. The 31-year-old got a few balls on his pads which he hit for boundaries. He hit the first six of his innings off Craig Miles in the 54th over.
The third wicket partnership was broken in the 57th over. Hannon-Dalby got the wicket of Gay who scored 77 runs from 146 balls including nine fours.
New batter Rob Keogh got bowled in Hannon-Dalby's next over for a single-digit score. Nair missed his century on County debut as he got dismissed by Ed Barnard in the 63rd over. He scored 78 runs from 177 balls. His innings featured 10 fours and a six.
At Stumps, Day 1, Northamptonshire were 200/5. Earlier, Warwickshire skipper Will Rhodes won the toss and opted to field first.
This was also Nair's 28th half-century in First-Class cricket. He made his last appearance in red-ball cricket in June 2022. In addition, he completed his 6,000 runs in the format. Nair has not been picked in India's Test squad since 2017. His last Test appearance was against Australia in Dharamsala where he got out after scoring just five runs.
Apart from Nair, another Indian cricketer made his County debut on September 10. Yuzvendra Chahal made his debut for Kent. However, he watched the match from the dressing room as Kent batted first against Nottinghamshire.
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