Former India cricketer and chairman of selectors Dilip Vengsarkar that gone back in time to reveal that the selection of Virat Kohli was not backed by the then India skipper MS Dhoni and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) President N Srinivasan.
Kohli was back after leading India to the coveted title in the ICC U-19 World Cup and was making the right noises with consistent runs. It was then Vengsarkar floated the idea of drafting the youngster in the national team which was not initially approved.
Dilip Vengsarkar fought to include Virat Kohli in 2008
Instead, Dhoni and Srinivasan backed Subramaniam Badrinath, who hails from Tamil Nadu. Notably, N Srinivasan hails from the stats and MS Dhoni was the skipper of Chennai Super Kings in the IPL owned Srinivasan’s company.
Addressing a gathering of journalist recently, Dilip Vengsarkar expressed that picking Virat Kohli ahead of Badrinath cost him his job of the chairman of selectors. The former India batsman was eventually replaced by teammate Kris Srikanth in 2008, two years into the job.
“He (Kohli) was technically sound and I thought he should be played. We were going to Sri Lanka and I felt that this is the ideal situation that he should be in the team. My four colleagues said ‘As you say Dilip Bhai’,” he said, referring to the other members of the selection panel.
“However, Gary and Dhoni were saying ‘No, we haven’t seen him and we will continue with the same team’. I told them ‘You haven’t seen him but I have seen and we have to take this boy’,” Vengsarkar said.
Meanwhile, thanks to Dilip Vengsarkar’s stubbornness which gifted India a player of Virat Kohli’s stature. The current Team India captain is arguably the greatest batsman of the modern-day game. He is also the only batsman to average over 50 in all three formats.
However, Kohli didn’t have a great start to 2020 struggling in New Zealand. He managed to score only one half-century in the 11 innings across formats. He will hope to make a strong comeback and lead India from the front.
