Legendary cricketer Dilip Vengsarkar, who was the former chief selector of Board of Control for Cricket in India, has made a shocking revelation about some events that ended his role as a selector. Among those revelations, the most prominent was how the then Indian team skipper MS Dhoni rejected his idea of including youngster Virat Kohli into the Indian team for a Sri Lankan tour in 2008.
Vengsarkar, who was speaking at an event in Mumbai, said that both Dhoni and the then India coach Gary Kirsten wanted to include Chennai Super Kings batsman Badrinath instead of Kohli. However, being the chief selector Vengsarkar himself made the final call by including Kohli in the team instead of Badrinath and this, in fact, ended his tenure as the chief selector.
ALSO READ: Here is the proof that cricketer hubby Virat Kohli is also a fabulous dancer.
Vengsarkar said, “I felt this was an ideal situation to include Kohli in the squad. Although the other four selectors agreed with my decision, Gary Kirsten and MS Dhoni were reluctant as they had not seen much of Kohli. I told them that I have seen him and we have to include him in the team.I knew that they were keen on keeping S Badrinath in the team because he was a Chennai Super Kings player. If Kohli would have come in, Badrinath would have been dropped. N Srinivasan was the BCCI treasurer at that time. He was upset that Badrinath was dropped because he was their player.”
Vengsarkar also opened up about what led him to choose Kohli over Badrinath. According to him Kohli’s performance in an Emerging players tournament after the U-19 World cup victory really impressed him. “I picked him in the tournament and went to Brisbane to watch him. He used to open the batting at the time. He scored 123 against New Zealand who had many more Test players in their side. I saw him bat and felt we should pick him for India. I felt he was ready. India was to play in Sri Lanka next in a one-day series. I thought that was the right opportunity,” he said.
Vengsarkar, known as ‘Colonel’, also alleged that N Sreenivasan, then treasurer of the BCCI, was unhappy at Badrinath’s omission and questioned him about it. Sreenivasan was upset because Badrinath belonged to his state(Tamil Nadu) and IPL(Chennai Super Kings) teams. According to Vengsarkar, Srinivasan soon approached Sharad Pawar, who was the BCCI president then and forced him to put an end to Vengsarkar’s tenure as chief selector.
Post Your Comments