The man from Delhi who went on to become the best batsman across formats of this generation in Virat Kohli has a rich story of him being drafted into the team. The former world cup winning member for Indian in Dilip Vengsarkar who was the chairman of the selection committee for India when Virat Kohli started establishing himself as a champion player revealed an interesting story about how he selected Virat Kohli for the senior team.
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The present Indian captain is arguably the best #3 batsman the world has ever seen but Virat Kohli used to open in his younger days for India A team which really impressed the then chairman of selectors in Dilip Vengsarkar. In an interview to Sportskeeda, Vengsarkar told
In the first match against New Zealand, they had scored 240-250 and Virat Kohli was asked to open the innings and he scored 123*. What I appreciated was that even after his hundred, he went on to win the game for his team and he remained not out. That really impressed me and there I thought that here is a boy that we must push into the Indian team because he was mentally mature and of course we picked him and the rest is history
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Every great hero needs a little push and Virat Kohli got that from the veteran batsman in Dilip Vengsarkar. The young lad from Delhi was piling up runs for fun in the domestic circuit and for the Indian A team. He was rightly spotted by Vengsarkar who selected him for the national side after the current Indian captain impressing the then selector.
When there was an emerging players’ tournament in Australia, I was the chairman of the selection committee (for the Indian team). We had decided at that point of time that we must pick players who were fringe players or who would play for India very soon, especially the U-23 boys. So we had picked Virat Kohli in the team,