Karun Nair slams maiden Test triple ton as India take control of the fifth Test against England

Karun Nair, playing his third Test match, scoring a dazzling unbeaten 303 off 381 balls, and in the process stitched two important partnerships with local boys Murali Vijay and Ravichandran Ashwin, to hand India the advantage in the fifth and final Test against England at the M A Chidambaram Stadium on December 19.

Nair’s triple-ton, along with Ashwin (71) and Ravindra Jadeja (51) were instrumental as India scored 759 for the loss of seven wickets, an overall lead of 282 runs. England negotiated five overs, scoring 12 runs without losing a wicket when stumps were drawn.

Karun stitched two important partnerships with the Tamil Nadu players — 181 with Ravichandran Ashwin for the sixth wicket and 63 with Murali Vijay for the fifth as India called the shots on a hot and humid day.

The crowd loved every bit of action as Nair and Vijay put on a half-century stand for the fifth wicket as England were sent on a leather hunt for the second consecutive day.

Although Nair’s innings had a masterclass written all over it, the right-hander had lot of luck as well. He was dropped on 34 by Alastair Cook, had a reprieve on 154 when the umpire failed to spot an inside edge (England had no reviews left), dropped at slip by Joe Root on 217 and finally Jonathan Bairstow missed a stumping chance when the batsman was on 246.

Nair and Murali Vijay started off from where they left off on Sunday by finding the gaps with ease. They got their 50-run partnership off 100 balls and with Nair approaching a maiden hundred mark, the senior-pro calmed his nerves with a pep-talk between the overs.

Vijay soon gave Liam Dawson his first Test wicket when he was trapped in front and even wasted a review, that later turned out to be inconsequential in the context of the innings. The dismissal of one TN batsman brought another as Ashwin joined Nair in milking the England bowlers.

Ashwin started very slow by scoring two runs off 21 balls as India went into the first break of the day, trailing by 14 runs.

The post lunch session saw the batsmen come out of their shackles and score freely as Alastair Cook started to deploy more men on the boundary ropes than around the bat.

Cook tried all tricks of the trade to stop Nair’s rampage. The England seamers started to bowl short with a fine third-man in place but Nair’s counter-attack methods, a tennis-forehanded shot off Jake Ball through mid-on, thwarted their plans.

The spinners were treated with disdain as Nair brought on wide-range of shots. He cut and pulled anything that was short, didn’t shy to reverse-sweep Moeen Ali and sent Adil Rashid repeatedly in to the stands. At one point, Cook had five men manning the ropes leaving room for a lot of singles and doubles that the Indian batsmen took with glee.

Ashwin and Jadeja did their bit with the bat as they combined to put on 319 with Nair. India were unstoppable in the third session as they milked 177 runs in 25.4 overs, at 6.9 runs per over. Nair, taking a cue from Virender Sehwag, who scored a triple ton eight-and-a-half years ago on this same ground, took 75 balls to move from 200 to 300 as the crowd went ballistic with every run scored.

England must give it all on the fifth day to avoid an embarrassing 4-0 defeat and with the pitch not aiding the spinners completely, the England batsman wouldn’t take negotiating 90 overs as an impossible task.