World Cup heroes back Kohli’s team

I would have picked RishabhPant if I were a selector, says ‘Colonel’ Ex-Indian cricketers, who were part of the 1983 World Cup-winning team, talk to Sunil K. Vaidya about India’s prospect this time

dubai — Dilip Vengsarkar risked his career as the Chairman of India’s selection committee and picked Virat Kohli in 2008.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Kohli is now expected to win the World Cup for India amidst a raging debate over team selection — especially over the non-inclusion of a young Rishabh Pant.

The straight-talking Vengsarkar hasn’t changed.

“If I was a selector today, I would have gone for Rishbah Pant in the World Cup team,” he told Khaleej Times over telephone from Mumbai.

“Pant is very talented, I was expecting him in the squad,” he said and pointed out that the Delhi wicketkeeper had recently scored a Test century at the Oval in England.

“He is young and he is an inform batsman. He should have been in the team,” the former India captain stressed.

However, Vengsarkar added that it would be difficult to know what the selectors had in mind in picking Dinesh Karthik over Pant.

“Maybe they were looking for experience so went for Karthik, who has been playing for over ten years,” he felt.

Vengsarkar wasn’t much disappointed with the exclusion of Ambati Rayudu.

“Look he was given enough chances, he is 33 and has been inconsistent, so he missed the bus,” the legendary batsman said.

England was Vegsarkar’s happy hunting ground. The elegant right-hander made three centuries at Lord’s — a record for most hundreds by a foreign batsman on cricket’s hallowed ground.

So obviously, Vegsarkar has a fair idea about the challenges teams could face in English conditions during the ICC World Cup from May 30-July 14.

Vegsarkar reckons that overall India has a well balanced team for the mega ICC event.

“Three good seamers, three quality spinners and two allrounders make it a strong attack,” he said.

At the same time, he cautioned about the need to adapt to the prevailing conditions.

“We will have to wait and watch how they play in those conditions,” he said.

“Of course, they know what is expected of them and they have been playing well throughout the year.”

Vengsarkar, who was called the ‘Colonel’ for his belligerent batting, remembered that they won the 1983 World Cup under Kapil Dev without any expectations.

“Our odds were 500-1 when we went to England,” he said, adding that they had lost all of their three warm-up games.

“We won our first match against the defending champions (the) West Indies and then there was no looking back as we went on to defeat the best of the teams and defeated the Windies again in the final for the World Cup,” he reminisced.

Now, Vengsarkar says Kohli’s balanced team are the hot favourites and carry the expectations of over 1.3 billion Indian fans.

The former Indian captain sees India in semifinals with Australia, England and the West Indies.

“It would be very important how well you play in the last four,” he reckons.

When asked about Pakistan, he said: “They (Pakistan) are unpredictable, so wait and see but skillswise not in (the) same bracket as the four semifinalists I predicted.”