Looking back at the England tour, what did India get?

It was a long-awaited tour of the Englishmen to India that consisted series of all the three formats. 5 Tests, 3 ODIs and 3 T20Is over the course of close to 3 months were as long as it could get on a trip. The build-up to the Test series was being termed as the chance for revenge of the Test series defeat that India suffered the last time England toured the subcontinent.

India got the kind of results they would have hoped for, if not the best. They wrapped up the Test series 4-0, won the ODI series 2-1 and the scoreline was similar in the T20 series as well. The domination over the visitors was evident in every format and there were some brilliant individual performances right through the tour.

While the settled players like Virat Kohli, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Murali Vijay returned with some marvelous outings, there were several new names in the Indian cricketing circuit that emerged with equally good performances. Looking back at the whole tour, here are the new names that made the talking points:

1. Karun Nair:

The 25-year-old had been around the Indian cricket for quite some time and had been doing well in the domestic circuit. He finally earned a call-up to the national squad for the England series. But it was difficult for him to make it in the playing XI as India had a settled batting line-up and there was no room for a newcomer. But the injuries to KL Rahul and Wriddhiman Saha meant that Parthiv Patel was brought in to open the innings and Karun Nair was slotted in to bat at number 6 in the third Test at Mohali.

The debut Test didn’t prove to be fruitful for Nair as he could manage only 4 runs in the first innings and did not get to bat in the second. In the fourth Test as well, the script turned out to be similar as he batted just once and scored 13 runs. The two failures put him under pressure but kudos to the team management who showed faith in him and backed him for the final Test at Chennai.

He repaid the faith of the team by scoring 303* runs in the first innings and in the process, became only the second Indian player after Virender Sehwag to score a triple century. It was a sheer pleasure for a cricket fan to watch him construct the knock of his life that included 32 fours and 4 sixes. He also became the first ever Indian to convert the maiden century into a triple century. He might have to sit out when Rahane Ajinkya Rahane returns to the Test squad, but in Nair, India now has an assurance of a high-quality Test batsman.