'Gambhir gave us a lot of encouragement and support'

Karun Nair was all praise for India head coach Gautam Gambhir for giving the players a "lot of encouragement and support" during the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy five-Test series in England recently.

The new-look Indian team led by the young Shubman Gill staged a remarkable comeback in the Oval Test to draw the five-Test series 2-2.

Karun revealed that right from the start of the series, the message was about putting the team first and upstaging England in their own backyard.

'The whole goal of the series was to do something special as a team. It was really inspiring to see this message coming from him from day one, and everyone really bought into it, which you must have noticed as the series progressed,' he told Boria Majumdar on RevSportz.

'Gauti

bhai was someone who gave us a lot of encouragement and support. I can talk for myself that he really gave me the confidence to go out there and give it my best. So, the whole focus was to go out there and play the way I know, to play for the team in any situation that I was in,' he added.

Karun, who made a comeback to the Test team after a long wait of eight years, managed just 205 runs at an average of 25.62 including just one fifty.

The 33 year old failed to make most of the rare opportunity as he could not convert his solid 30s and 40s into something of substance.