On the occasion of Virat Kohli’s 100th Test match, former Indian captain and chief selector, Dilip Vengsarkar, has showered rich praises on the world-class batter and wished him on his remarkable milestone.
Kohli is currently appearing in his 100th Test for India, being played in Mohali on March 4th, Friday against Sri Lanka. He has now become the 71st player in the world and 12th Indian to play 100 Test matches.
Notably, the dashing cricketer’s journey in international cricket started when he was picked for an ODI against Sri Lanka back in August 2008, while he made his Test debut in 2011 against West Indies.
Well, Kohli has come a long way, and on his special day, Vengsarkar, who himself played 116 Tests, recounted the moment when he saw the right-hander play for the first time and how he then selected the former skipper for the Emerging Players Tournament in Australia.
He was the chairman of selectors when Kohli made his international debut in 2008.
In a video shared by BCCI on Twitter, Vengsarkar said: “I watched Virat Kohli for the first time during a U-16 tournament when he played for Delhi schools against Mumbai schools and that was at Kolkata. He didn't score many runs but he was quite impressive. Later on of course he played U-19 for India and did extremely well, they won the World Cup.”
He further added, “The emerging players' tournament was happening in Australia and I was the chairman of the selection committee, and we picked U-23 boys in that tournament because what we felt was that emerging players should be under 23 because they are the future of Indian cricket, so that's how we had picked Virat Kohli.”
Watch the video here:
