Karun Nair, who was not selected in the South Zone playing XI for the Duleep Trophy final against East Zone, on Monday directed a dig at the selection process. Nair had scored 699 runs in last season’s Ranji Trophy and him missing the Duleep final raised a fair few eyebrows.

After his non-selection, Nair had left the team with South Zone coach Vikram Verma saying that the batter had departed for personal reasons. However, Nair was seen in action on Monday for the KSCA Secretary XI at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in the Thimmappiah Trophy where he slammed 104 runs.

On Tuesday, Nair quote tweeted a post which said that he was inexplicably left out of the Duleep Trophy final, tweeting out, “Inexplicable would be an understatement” with a laughing emoji.

In the Duleep Trophy final, Ishan Kishan made a stupendous 270 to lead East to a mammoth 700-plus first innings total. In fact, South ignored the Karnataka batter rather inexplicably in the semifinal also, which was played last week at the BCCI Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru.

“Actually, we went with a good combination because every team has two left-hand spinners. So, we thought a left-hand batter in the middle order would give us a good chance to dominate them,” said coach Verma.

“So again, we thought about what is best for the team. Now since Devdutt Padikkal has come back, the team combination matter was there. It is very difficult to miss him (Karun) out, but that’s the combination we have.”

Verma attributed Karun’s absence to “personal reasons.” “He went back due to personal reasons at home. He mailed us and took the permission for his travel due to family reasons,” he said.

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But Karun’s participation in a tournament in his home city, however, indicated that him non-playing the domestic season opener has more to it than mere “personal reasons.” The 34-year-old’s hundred ensured that Secretary’s XI finished day 1 of the match against Chhattisgarh at 277 for 9 in 90 overs.

It may also tell that South Zone missed a trick by overlooking Karun, after conceding 708 runs against East Zone in the Duleep Trophy title clash on a placid pitch. The Karnataka batter, a dominant player against spin, would have loved to take on tweakers at the Chidambaram Stadium.

However, Verma thought South Zone are still in the contest.

“Our plan is to play session by session and build partnerships so that we bat 5 sessions from now, so that we can chase it (East’s total of 708) down,” he said.