Delhi: There are many such stories in Indian cricket, when good talented players, due to not being given a chance at the right time, missed playing for Team India or could not play till the end. These days, there is a lot of talk about Nitish Kumar Reddy’s better performance against Australia and the faith of team chief coach Gautam Gambhir in his talent. It was Gambhir’s belief that Reddy and Harshit Rana played Test in this series.
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Similar story of faith in Indian cricket is also in the case of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. Everyone knows how Dilip Vengsarkar supported Virat Kohli in his initial years as a selector, but the story of Rohit Sharma is no less sensational. If there was no support from former Indian captain Vengsarkar, would he have played international cricket? There is no answer to this question now but the most important thing is to get the opportunity at the right time. For Rohit Sharma, a marriage in Delhi became a big coincidence.
Rohit Sharma is a Mumbai cricketer but the truth is that he was fighting for a place in the Mumbai team also. At that stage, Dilip Vengsarkar supported him as Chief Selector. Vengsarkar became the chief selector in 2006 in place of Kiran More and he was faced with the challenge of rebuilding the Indian team after its exit in the first round of the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies. For this, Vengsarkar was looking for new talent more than bringing back old cricketers.
In 2005–06, Rohit Sharma was shining in Mumbai’s local cricket and Vengsarkar had heard about him but did not get a chance to see him play. Coincidentally Vengsarkar came to Delhi to attend a wedding and then he came to know about Rohit Sharma playing in the Indian Oil-ONGC match here. Vengsarkar took some time off from the wedding and went to watch the match. Incidentally, Rohit was in top form that day and scored 100 against bowlers like Munaf Patel and Amit Mishra. In this way this marriage brought Rohit in the eyes of Vengsarkar.
Vengsarkar spoke to the Mumbai team selector and asked him to give Rohit a chance but it was not easy. It was decided that Rohit Sharma would play the Irani Trophy match but he could not make it to the playing eleven. After this it was decided that Rohit Sharma would be given a chance in the Deodhar Trophy. This time, Rohit Sharma came into the team on Vengsarkar’s insistence and especially his score of 143 against North Zone completely justified Vengsarkar’s support for him.
In this discussion, it is necessary to mention another incident from those days. In fact, Vengsarkar had seen Rohit bat for the first time at NCA, Bengaluru. Then he was on the duty of finding talent for BCCI. Only someone like Vengsarkar could have done this, he remembered all that. Therefore, when there was a Cricket Club of India, Mumbai-Australia practice match, he convinced me to be selected in the playing Mumbai team. Rohit was not told anything about this so that he does not come under any pressure.
Mumbai’s coach at that time was Chandrakant Pandit and how easy was it to convince him? On the other hand, a different drama took place on the day of the match. Rohit had not even thought that he would be in the playing eleven and there was no possibility of practice, so that day Rohit Sharma reached the stadium without his kit bag. Coach Chandu got very angry after knowing this and he was ready to take disciplinary action against Rohit. Even then Vengsarkar saved Rohit Sharma by calling him a new player and only then Chandu gave Rohit Sharma a chance to play further. How many players get such support?