Karun Nair was elegance personified while serving a timely reminder to the Gautam Gambhir-led team management with a classy unbeaten 186 as India A cruised to 409/3 against a below-par England Lions on the opening day of their first four-day game.

While Nair is known to bat either at No. 4 or below in First-Class cricket, he looked at ease at No. 3 during his unbeaten 246-ball knock.

Nair used his extensive experience of playing for English County Northamptonshire during his 24th First-Class ton. His innings had 24 fours and one six but it couldn’t have come at a more opportune time as Gambhir frets over his batting combination for the opening Test against England at Leeds, starting June 20.

Sarfaraz Khan (92 off 119 balls) blended a bit of muscle and a lot of cheekiness but missed out on a three-figure mark after doing all the hard work. The duo added 181 runs for the third wicket stand and then Dhruv Jurel (82 batting, 104 balls) made merry during another 177-run stand for the unbroken fourth wicket alliance.

Call it irony, just like Nair pipped Sarfaraz as the extra batter in the Test squad, he also overshadowed the Mumbai man on a flat deck where the Lions attack didn’t have enough teeth to trouble some of the senior India stars. Yashasvi Jaiswal (24 off 55 balls) played out the first hour but didn’t utilise the start while Abhimanyu Easwaran (8) could not get going.

The Canterbury County ground pitch had a greenish tinge but there was hardly any lateral movement on offer. Nair had extra time to play his shots and was severe on all bowlers with a lot of shots square of the wicket.

Brief scores: India A: 409/3 in 90 overs (Karun 186*, Sarfaraz 92, Jurel 82*).