India veteran cricket Karun Nair opened up on the toughest phase of his career after getting named in the Shubman Gill-led Test squad for the England series. The 33-year-old is making his international comeback after eight years following his brilliant performance in domestic cricket.
Nair, who smashed a triple ton for India, said that his toughest phase came at the end of 2022.
"In terms of incidents, I would say, it was quite a dark place at the end of 2022. Very emotional phase for me. I think the toughest time for me. Even tougher than 2018, or whatever, whenever that was," Nair said during an interaction with R Ashwin on his Youtube channel.
Nair is one the verge of making a comeback in India's Test XI. There are strong chances that he will be part of India's playing XI for the first Test against England, beginning in Leeds.
Though he has emerged stronger, he wouldn't want to go back to the time when he often wondered why he was dropped from the team a few games after scoring a memorable triple hundred on Test debut against England, in 2016.
"No. I don't want to be where I was a couple of years ago, quite honestly."
He added, "I think at the moment, at least I am very grateful. Like you said, I have gotten past that complaining stage. Very grateful to be in the situation that I am and I just treat every day as something that's given to me, and I am living my life and doing what I love.
"I am very grateful to everyone that has been part of my journey in the last 2-3 years at least. I have understood to value things. I have understood to value each moment and just treat every single day as a new day."
Being dropped from the Indian team, without any explanation, was perplexing for Nair during that dark phase.
"Honestly, I couldn't understand what was happening. Because after the 300 in Chennai, after the Australia series, I think the next series was in Sri Lanka in 2017.
"I wasn't part of that squad either. And from then on, I couldn't understand what was happening. Then I had to go back in domestic cricket."
Recalling his difficult phase, Nair felt he could have cemented his place in the Indian team with big scores in a Test series against Australia.
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"I had no clue what was happening. All I knew was my name wasn't there. I couldn't understand how it wasn't there.
"But if I look back and think that there is one side of me saying that 'yes, I didn't get too many opportunities'. But the other way I would also think is the four innings that I played against Australia, and I got a couple of starts.
"If I had just converted those starts into bigger scores, maybe I wouldn't be in this position or had to have gone through that."
Asked what he was doing at that point in time, Nair said, "Just figuring out how I should go about things and what I should be doing.
"Obviously, I was a lot younger at that time and couldn't probably control what was running in my head like I am able to do today. So, basically, just a confused mind and was trying so hard to get back that I think I just kept getting worse.
"But I had a great season that year in domestic cricket and I was able to come back like I said in the 2018 season. And then again, went back there. Didn't have too many opportunities."
The five-Test match series between India and England is scheduled to start from June 20.