When giving Virat Kohli his break cost Dilip Vengsarkar the job

But his inclusion had more far-reaching consquences than Vengsarkar had imagined. A day after the selection meeting, a fuming N Srinivasan, then the BCCI treasurer, asked him why Subramaniam Badrinath was overlooked. The Tamil Nadu’s middle-order batsman, on the back of a consistent domestic churn, was widely speculated to join the team. “Srinivasan got fed up as his player was kept out and he questioned me as to how I didn’t pick Badri? I replied that I had gone to watch the Emerging Tour in Australia and found this boy Kohli exceptional,” he reminisced.

But Srinivasan wouldn’t buy it. “ He reasoned that Badrinath had scored 800 runs for Tamil Nadu. I told him he will get a chance and angry Srinivasan asked ‘when he will get a chance, he is 29 (27) years old?’” Badrinath, meanwhile, ranted that the selectors are deliberately ignoring him, despite his staggering consistency across formats and years.

When contacted on Thursday, Srinivasan refused to comment.

As it turned out, Badrinath did get his chance as Sachin Tendulkar pulled out of the ODIs. He made the debut two days after Kohli’s. Picking Kohli was the last big call Vengsarkar had to make during his feisty tenure. By the time India returned after claiming their first bilateral ODI series win in Sri Lanka, Vengsarkar was on his way out. “Srinivasan took (Kris) Srikkanth to Sharad Pawar – the BCCI president – and sent me home. That was the end of my career as a selector.”

The alleged reason was conflict of interest, as Vengsarkar was also the vice-president of Mumbai Cricket Association, Later, in the AGM held in September that year, where Srinivasan became the secretary, BCCI made it mandatory that selectors can’t be holding posts in state associations.

It’s a different story, though, that Badrinath just played six more ODIs and a couple of Tests while Kohli, with nearly half a career remaining, is already counted as one of the finest Indian batsmen ever. And Vengsarkar’s faith in him, during the uneasy selection meeting, seems doubly justified.

Talking about Kohli’s performance during the Emerging Player Tournament, Vengsarkar said: “We’d sent a young team for the tournament, mostly U-23 players and Kohli was picked because he had opened the innings and scored a terrific hundred against New Zealand, which had some good players (Martin Guptill, Corey Anderson, Jesse Ryder),” he recollected.

Kohli, too, has acknowledged Vengsarkar’s role in his growth. In fact, it was Vengsarkar who persuaded him to open the innings during the tournament. Before this knock, he was mostly batting down the order and not contributing much (his previous scores were 2 and 1). His confidence enhanced, he capped off the series with a breezy half-century against a South Africa side that featured Lonwabo Tsotsobe and Wayne Parnell as well as emerging the second highest run-getter after Shikhar Dhawan.

Throwing youngsters to deep end was a characteristic of Vengsarkar’s tenure. Earlier that year, Rohit Sharma and Manoj Tiwary were picked for the tri-series in Australia. But Kohli, unarguably, was his master-stroke.