Dilip Vengsarkar explains why appointing Shikhar Dhawan captain in past was mistake by 'visionless' selectors

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Former India cricketer Dilip Vengsarkar has slammed the selectors for not having vision and appointing Shikhar Dhawan captain when the key players were unavailable or when tours overlapped in the past.

The former chief selector has reckoned that selectors should have utilised the period to groom a youngster as a future leader. Dhawan, who led Punjab Kings (PBKS) in the IPL 2023, was the captain of the Indian team during Sri Lanka's white ball tour in July 2021.

He also led the ODI team for the West Indies in July 2022. The same year saw Shikhar Dhawan lead the Indian ODI side against South Africa at home and against New Zealand in New Zealand.

Vengsarkar has slammed the selectors for lacking vision and deep knowledge of cricket. He also highlighted that despite being the richest board in the world, India lacks any bench strength.

“The unfortunate part is that the selectors I have seen over the last six-seven years neither have the vision, deep knowledge about the game or cricketing sense. They made Shikhar Dhawan India captain (when tours overlapped and main players were unavailable); it is where you can groom the future captain,” Vengsarkar was quoted as saying to Hindustan Times.

“You haven’t groomed anybody. You just play as it comes. You talk about the richest cricket board in the world, where is the bench strength? Just having IPL, earning crores of rupees in media rights, it should not be the only achievement,” Vengsarkar added.

The comments from Vengsarkar come just ahead of Team India's announcement for the upcoming Test series against West Indies. With a fresh World Test Championship Cycle (WTC 2023-25) starting, it would be interesting to see the approach of the selectors. Notably, India lost the WTC 2023 final by 209 runs against Australia earlier this month.