Veteran batter Karun Nair registered a century for Secretary XI in a pre-season fixture after South Zone excluded him from their Duleep Trophy final against East Zone. Nair, the most experienced player in the current squad with 10 Test caps, missed out for a second consecutive match while his teammates watched East Zone amass 708 in Chennai.
Match-Ups Over Domestic Pedigree
South Zone captain Tilak Varma previously justified the semi-final omission against North Zone as a tactical preference. Varma indicated the management wanted Kodimela Himateja to counter opposition left-arm spin. “Karun is just unlucky. He has scored a lot of runs in domestic seasons,” Varma said. “I have chosen Himateja in place of Karun as they have good left-arm spinners. So we wanted a leftie in the middle order. He has also scored a decent amount of runs in domestic cricket. I was just backing him. As a youngster, he also has a good career. At the same time, it is very unfortunate for Karun.” The strategy faltered when Himateja registered a duck before being replaced by Devdutt Padikkal for the final. Nair instead featured against Chhattisgarh in a Karnataka State Cricket Association warm-up, compiling a defiant hundred. His instant return to form exposes a growing reliance on rigid analytical match-ups over accumulated run-scoring pedigree. This theoretical approach contrasts with setups building proven depth, such as the squad that secured South Africa’s T20I Tri-Series victory, or aggressive recruitment drives that recently saw Leus du Plooy recommit to South Africa. Replying to a social media post labelling his absence as “inexplicable”, the batter wrote: “Inexplicable would be an understatement,”. South Zone resume their first innings trailing the massive 708-run total.
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