Dilip Vengsarkar Biography

Fomer Indian captain and a member of the 1983 World Cup winning team Dilip Balwant Vengsarkar was born on April 6, 1956 in Rajapur, Maharashtra. Fondly called as 'Colonel', Vengsarkar made his international cricket debut at Auckland against New Zealand in 1975-76. He played his last test against Australia at Perth in 1991-92. Vengsarkar played a total of 116 tests scoring 6868 runs at an average of 42.13 with 17 hundreds and a highest score of 166. Besides, he also played in 129 one-day internationals scoring 3508 runs at an average of 34.73.

He shot into the limelight when he slammed a hundred against a Rest of India squad in an Irani Cup tie at Nagpur. The only batsman to have scored consecutive test centuries at Lord's in three successive appearances, he scored a thousand runs in a calendar year in 1979. Vengsarkar was one of the few Indian batsmen who held out against the West Indies. He was awarded the Man of the Series award in India's away test series vs England in England. Vengsarkar took over the reins of the Indian team after the 1987 Cricket World Cup.

He has received many awards and accolades. This great cricketer of yesteryears was awarded the Arjuna Award in 1981, the Padma Shri in 1987 and the Wisden cricketer of the year award in the same year. After his retirement, Dilip Vengsarkat started the Elf-Vengsarkar Academy in 1995. He became the Vice-President of the Mumbai Cricket Association in 2003. Besides, he was also entrusted with the task of grooming junior level cricketing talent in the country by the Board of Control for Cricket in India(BCCI). Vengsarkar became the chairman of the board of selectors of the BCCI in September 2006.