Former Proteas captain Faf du Plessis said he expected to be left out of South Africa's T20 World Cup squad despite his excellent form in the format this year.
This year, Du Plessis led the Chennai Super Kings to the Indian Premier League (IPL) title, smashing 86 from 59 balls to help defeat Kolkata Knight Riders in the final in Dubai.
In September, he also clobbered a quickfire 120 in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) off 60 balls for St Lucia Kings, days before SA's World Cup squad was announced.
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The 37-year-old was quoted in TimesLIVE saying he expected to be left out of head coach Mark Boucher's team that did duty in the UAE.
"I expected it," Du Plessis said.
"When I wasn't selected for the Sri Lankan tour, I expected that was the team that would be going to go to the World Cup. My expectations were that I wasn't going to go to the World Cup, even though my performances in the Indian Premier League (IPL) were exceptional.
"I don't think that [my performances in the IPL] mattered because they had already decided they would pick a team that was playing together in all the games leading up to the World Cup."
Du Plessis also said there was "a lot more" to his exclusion.
Du Plessis, Chris Morris and Imran Tahir were notable exclusions from the team that failed to progress into the semi-finals despite spirited performances in the Super 12 stage.
"When you're working with free agents, you have to come together that works for both the team and the free agents, they're obviously attracted to various leagues, and then the squad has its own requirements on how they build towards a World Cup," said Cricket South Africa's director of cricket Graeme Smith at the time.
"You try and find that balance all the time, and unfortunately, with Faf in particular, we struggled to find that balance that worked for both parties."