Veteran cricket administrator Prof Ratnakar Shetty on Tuesday heaped praise on former chairman of selectors Dilip Vengsarkar for bringing in Virat Kohli in the national team.
“I have not seen a chairman in selection committee better than Dilip Vengsarkar in my tenure in BCCI,” Shetty said after his book On Board – My years in BCCI was launched in Mumbai by former BCCI chief Sharad Pawar.
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“We celebrated Virat Kohli’s 100 Test, but I know the truth that when he came back from ICC World Cup U-19, he (Vengsarkar) pushed him (Kohli) into the Emerging player’s tournament, sent him to Australia where Virat got a hundred in the final, which we won.
“He came back (and) Dilip introduced him into the Indian team and brought him into this mainstream of Indian cricket,” he recalled.
Shetty, who has worked closely with former India captain Vengsarkar, a veteran of 116 Tests, also threw light on the ‘Colonel’s’ tenure as the chief national selector.
“Not only that, even in the Greg Chappell era, difficult times in Indian cricket, some of the cricketers were left in the lurch at that time, many of them came back to play for India when he (Vengsarkar) became chairman of selection committee.
“Because, he had that power and he could take such decisions. That was Dilip Vengsarkar,” added Shetty, who is a chemistry professor by profession.
According to Shetty, Pawar, the former ICC, BCCI and MCA chief, had the knack of getting things done .
Pawar launched the book in the presence of Vengsarkar, Mumbai Cricket Association President Dr Vijay Patil, and a host of former India and first class cricketers, including Balwinder Singh Sandhu, Diana Edulji, Nilesh Kulkarni, Chandrakant Pandit and others.
Shetty also said that former BCCI chief N Srinivasan brought in the corporate structure in the Board.
“And N Srinivasan, I think, very few people would know that the amount of help that he gave to cricketers, jobs, funding cricketers in difficult times and the way he ran BCCI was (like) a corporate office. So the corporate structure in the BCCI was brought by N Srinivasan,” recalled Shetty,
On the occasion, both Vengsarkar and Pawar heaped praise on Shetty for his work as an administrator.
Pawar also recalled several anecdotes.
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