March 2008, a man named Virender Sehwag destroyed South Africa for 319 runs at Chennai’s MA Chidambaram Stadium. That was the first triple hundred any Indian had made on home soil. Eight years later, the same ground saw something even more impossible. A 25-year-old playing his third Test match, only in the team because two senior players were injured, joined Sehwag in an exclusive club. Karun Nair made 303* runs. He pointed to his crying parents in the stands. He became a legend in one afternoon. Then he disappeared so completely that most cricket fans today don’t even remember his name. This is what happened to Karun Nair, and why his story tells us everything about how cruel modern cricket can be.
The day cricket Gods smiled on a backup player
Karun Nair should never have played that Test against England in December 2016. Ajinkya Rahane got hurt in the Mumbai nets. Just like that, a door opened. Nair walked in carrying the weight of two ordinary Test matches behind him. Run out by his captain in his debut. A dropped catch in his second game that cost India heavily. He had nothing to lose and everything to prove.
When he walked in on day three, India were 211 for 3 and still 266 runs behind England’s total. KL Rahul was batting like a man possessed at the other end. Rahul reached 199 and got out, missing his double century by a single run. Nair watched this happen. He was on 69. What he did after that changed his life forever.
First, he shut down and played like a monk. Took 49 balls to crawl from 71 to his first hundred. Vijay guided him through the nervous nineties, telling him to breathe. Nair played five consecutive dot balls from Ben Stokes on 99 before steering a wide ball past backward point. His first hundred had taken 185 balls. He had hit only three boundaries in that period. One was an edge he didn’t mean. England were bowling tight lines. The pitch had uneven bounce. Nair simply survived.
Then he exploded after tea. India had gone from trailing by 14 at lunch to leading by 105 at tea. Nair was on 195. What followed was pure violence masked as batting. He smashed 108 runs from 78 balls. He tennis-forehanded Jake Ball through vacant mid-on. He ramped Stuart Broad over the keeper for six.
Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid came on with five fielders on the rope. Nair reverse-swept and slog-swept them anyway, hitting four boundaries and a brutal six in consecutive overs. His final hundred came from 75 balls. The England captain Cook had placed all his men for a single when Nair was on 299. Rashid bowled short. Nair slapped it square. Cook himself dived at cover point. The ball raced past. The stadium erupted. India declared at 759 for 7.
Mother who had to be convinced to watch
ESPNcricinfo’s Siddharth Monga reported something that day that perfectly captured the human side of this fairytale. Prema Nair, Karun’s mother, does not watch her son bat. She locks herself in a room and worships when he is at the crease. Her husband Kaladharan tapes the games and she watches them later. The nervousness is too much. She believes she brings bad luck.
Kaladharan, struggled to convince his wife to come to Chennai for this Test. He played on her emotions. How would he go alone? How would she stay back alone? This was their son’s first Test in south India. Finally, Prema relented. She sat in the stands with moist eyes as Karun reached his first hundred, then his double, then his triple. He kept pointing to the Pattabhiraman Gate End, Level 1 of F Stand, where they sat. After 303 runs, Prema finally allowed herself to believe she could not bring bad luck to a son whose career had demanded so many family sacrifices.
When gratitude turned into tragedy
The Nair family believes deeply in luck and gods and signs. In July 2016, Karun got his India cap for limited-overs cricket in Zimbabwe. To show gratitude, he went to Alleppey in Kerala for a religious offering. The snake boat capsized in strong currents. Everyone swam for safety. Karun survived but relatives who organized the trip did not. A trip to thank the gods for good fortune became the worst kind of nightmare.
That accident cast a long shadow. On the A tour of Australia in August and September 2016, Nair scored 38 runs in four innings. On Test debut, he got run out by some freakish fielding. In his second Test, he dropped Keaton Jennings before he scored. Jennings made a century. Then Nair fell to a dodgy review on 13. When you are superstitious and these things happen, you start questioning yourself. You wonder if you belong at this level.
Promise that melted away
Nair’s 303 made him the second Indian after Sehwag to score a Test triple hundred. He became the third batsman ever after Garry Sobers and Bob Simpson to reach this mark in his first ever century innings. He had scored his triple-hundred in his third Test innings, faster than anyone. And he was just 25 Years old!
When India prepared for their next Test, they had a problem everyone dreams of having. They had to leave out at least one player among Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, and Karun Nair, a man with an unbeaten 303 in his last knock. The world was at his feet.
Unfortunately, he played three more Tests. That was it. Six Tests total. The triple-centurion, the Ranji Trophy winner, the Karnataka captain, by 2022 could not find a place in the Karnataka squad across any format. The promise had evaporated completely.
Comeback that ended before it began
Vidarbha gave him shelter in domestic cricket. Nair scored runs by the truckload in all formats. The sheer weight of his runs forced selectors to notice. In June 2025, he completed what looked like a full circle. India picked him for the England Test series again. The fairytale was back.
It lasted four Tests. First innings: zero. Second innings: twenty. Two more Tests, four more innings. Then dropped for the fourth Test at Old Trafford. The story was over before it could begin again. No miracles, no final chapter, no redemption.
The Ghost still walks at Chepauk
Nine years later, the MA Chidambaram Stadium still stands. Sehwag’s 319 remains legend. But Nair’s 303 feels like a ghost story we collectively imagined. Did a 25-year-old really do that? Did he really point to his mother after every milestone, trying to convince her she wasn’t cursed?
Karun Nair did the unthinkable. Then the unthinkable happened to him. He vanished so completely that his triple century now feels like a rumour. Cricket does this to people. One day you are 303 not out, the highest scorer in India’s highest ever total, the name everyone is shouting. Next, you are fighting to get into a state team. Then you get your final chance, make a duck, and the door slams shut forever.
The ghost of Karun Nair’s 303 still walks the Chepauk stands, pointing to a mother who finally learned to watch, asking us all a question we cannot answer: what if?
