Following his outstanding double century for India A against the England Lions in an unofficial Test match, Karun Nair made a stunning comeback to the Indian cricket squad after an eight-year absence. India's head coach, Gautam Gambhir, has praised Nair.

Since then, he has participated in both Test matches against England, amassing 77 runs at an average of 19.25 in four innings. Even while the return hasn't completely changed the standings, his perseverance is something to be proud of.

During the 2024–25 domestic season, he amassed 863 runs at an average of 53.93 while playing for Vidarbha, helping them win the Ranji Trophy. He finished the Vijay Hazare Trophy with an incredible average of 389.50 after smashing five hundreds in only eight innings.

Gautam Gambhir talked about Karun Nair’s toil in domestic cricket, which helped him in his comeback to the Indian team.

"You tell me one thing, you were in the same position. So many times, you had to go back to first-class cricket, and you had to perform and get a lot of runs to make a comeback. I was exactly in the same boat as well. The only way you can look at a comeback or the only way you can think of playing Test cricket for India is if you've been dropped or if you're not part of it, is going back to first-class cricket and score heaps and heaps of runs," said India coach Gautam Gambhir in conversation with Cheteshwar Pujara on Sony Sports Network.

He called Karun Nair’s comeback story inspiring, was the entire team welcomed him back to the Indian team fold.

"And Karun Nair has done that exactly. He's done that. That's the reason why I said that for me, first-class cricket is very, very important. You know the importance of first-class cricket. You've played so much of first-class cricket. For me, I think the foundation of Indian cricket is the first-class structure," he added.

Karun has played 4 innings in 3 Tests thus far and scored 77 runs with a best of 31 at an average of 19.25.