Karun Nair was left out twice in a week, and he scored a hundred somewhere else
A selection row has opened up at the Duleep Trophy final in Chennai, where South Zone’s coach and their most decorated batter have given different accounts of the same departure.
Sep 8, 2026
Karun Nair trained with South Zone at Chepauk on the eve of the Duleep Trophy final. He was not in the eleven when it was named, for the second match running, and by Sunday he had gone home to Bengaluru. On Monday he made a hundred there, for a KSCA Secretary XI, in a tournament that exists mainly to get Karnataka’s batters ready for the Ranji season.
Two versions of why he left
South Zone coach Vikram Verma was asked about the absence after stumps on the second day and said Nair had gone home for personal reasons, that he had emailed and been given permission. Nair replied to a post about his omission on X with five words: “Inexplicable would be an understatement.”
Those two accounts do not sit together, and that is the whole story. A player leaving a squad mid-final is unusual enough. A player leaving and then publicly disagreeing with his coach’s explanation of why is a different thing again.
Verma’s cricketing case was about balance. He pointed to the left-arm spin in the opposition attack, Anukul Roy’s in particular, and said South wanted a left-hander in that middle-order slot to take it on. Devdutt Padikkal was available again after missing the semi-final. In that semi-final against North Zone, with Padikkal unavailable, the place had gone to a younger batter, Kodimela Himateja, rather than Nair. So Nair sat out both.
The position nobody wanted to fill
What makes the selection awkward is the top of the order. South Zone went into the final with one specialist opener, Narayan Jagadeesan, and asked their vice-captain Ricky Bhui to fill the other slot. Bhui has opened in three of his 90 first-class matches. He made 5 and 42 doing it in the semi-final, and on the third morning in Chennai he was caught behind for 1 from 18 balls.
Tilak Varma, South’s captain, had defended the plan the day before the final, pointing out that Bhui had opened before and was senior enough to adjust. It is a reasonable thing for a captain to say. It is also a squad carrying a batter with 303 not out in a Test at this very ground who was not asked to do either job.
One detail worth holding on to: the Duleep Trophy squads are picked by selectors from each state association inside the zone, not by the national selectors. Whatever this is, it is not a message from the people who choose India teams.
Where Nair actually is
He is 34. He scored that 303 not out against England at Chepauk in December 2016 and did not play another Test for nearly eight years. The recall came in June 2025, on the tour of England, after a Vidarbha season in which he made 863 runs at 53.93 in the Ranji Trophy they went on to win. His last Test was on 31 July 2025. He has since moved back to Karnataka on a no-objection certificate from Vidarbha.
It is a career that keeps arranging itself the same way. The runs happen in one place. The selection happens in another. Monday’s hundred in Bengaluru fit the pattern exactly.
The match he walked away from
The match he left is not close. East Zone batted for 163 overs and made 708, with Ishan Kishan making 270 and Kumar Kushagra 101, and Tripurana Vijay’s four wickets cost 180 of them. That took two full days. South Zone began their reply on the third morning, all 708 behind. Padikkal, the man whose return kept Nair out, was the one holding it together.
Nair’s next appointment is the Ranji Trophy, in Karnataka colours, where the runs count towards something the zone selectors do not control.