Team India would be more than proud of themselves after levelling the five-match Test series against England 2-2, despite trailing the outing 1-2 after Lord's heartbreak. However, Shubman Gill's brigade then staged a stunning comeback and first pulled off an impressive draw in Manchester and then went on to earn a miraculous win in the series decider at the Kennington Oval, to restore parity in the five-match contest. But what caught everyone's eyes was despite over 7,000 runs being scored in the India versus England Test series, only the second time this has happened in Test history, India's number three batsmen struggled to find success. Both Sai Sudharsan and Karun Nair batted in the crucial position, with a combined average of just 241, indicating a significant weakness in the lineup.
Irfan Pathan rates Karun Nair and Sai Sudharsan's performance in England
Nair, who is considered a veteran, failed to perform in two different batting positions, making him arguably India's most disappointing batter of the series. While Sudharsan's performance wasn't much better, his debut status gave him some leeway. As a result, former cricketer Irfan Pathan has rated Sudharsan's performance as superior to Nair's, given the difference in their experience levels.
“Karun Nair gets four out of ten. Why? He didn’t look particularly poor throughout the series. He kept getting starts consistently but managed only one half-century. He got plenty of opportunities. Cricket definitely gave him a second chance, but he couldn’t capitalise on it the way he should have. Especially in the Lord’s Test, he had a real chance to win the match for India but couldn’t do it,” Pathan said in his Youtube channel.
“Other than that, it often seemed like he was playing well, building up nicely, and then suddenly, he’d play a loose shot and get out. At the Oval, when the bouncer was used against him, he looked a bit shaken and seemed more unsettled and uncomfortable. So, he gets four points,” he added.
India's World Cup-winner believes that Sudharsan showed promising signs during the series. Although he didn't state it outright, it appears that Pathan would like to see the young batter continue at the number three spot in India's upcoming home Test series against the West Indies in October. Unlike Nair, Sudharsan was often dismissed by quality deliveries and also made efforts to address his weakness on the leg side, a vulnerability that Ben Stokes had successfully exploited earlier in the series.
“Sai Sudharsan gets five out of ten. He came across as a player who, with a bit of work on a few aspects, clearly has a lot of cricketing potential. He could have made better use of the opportunities he got but wasn’t quite able to do so. However, I do believe that if he had played all the matches, things might have turned out differently, because it’s not that easy.”
“When you go overseas, you get a chance, your team loses, then you get dropped, and later you’re brought back. But as a player, he’ll definitely feel that if he gets regular opportunities going forward, he can achieve a lot. I’ve always liked left-handed batters at the top of the order, and even in the last match when he got a chance, he scored a half-century and batted well. He has the ability to do well. That’s why he gets five out of ten,” Pathan concluded.