Karun Nair's massive ton sets up India A's strong start

Karun Nair boosted his chances of finding a place in India's XI for the opening Test against England next month with an unbeaten century on the opening day of India A's first unofficial Test against England Lions.

Nair got going with an early boundary and never stopped until the end of the day's play. Yashasvi Jaiswal gave him brief company, smashing a six before departing for 24. This paved the way for a massive partnership between Nair and Sarfaraz Khan.

Despite not being picked in the senior squad, Sarfaraz made quite an impression alongside Nair. Both batters kept the scorecard ticking and batting in brisk fashion to keep the Lions bowling attack at bay. With both batters in the 90s, Lions finally struck, breaking the 181-run partnership with the wicket of Sarfaraz as he fell eight short of a ton.

Nair then joined forces with Dhruv Jurel to frustrate Lions for the rest of the day. The two batters batted out the remaining 34 overs in the day and piled on the agony. Like Sarfaraz, Jurel too scored runs in quick fashion as the India A batters showed no signs of fatigue despite having little time to recover and acclimatise following their IPL commitments.

Nair and Jurel ended up adding 177 runs as India A breached the 400-run mark to eventually finish with 409/3 by stumps. While Jurel finished unbeaten on 82, Nair is now only 14 short of a double ton.