Name:

Vengsarkar, Dilip Balwant

Nickname:

Colonel

Date of Birth:

06 Apr 1956

Gender:

Men

Place of Birth:

Rajapur

Career:

Test: 1976 - 1992
ODI: 1976 - 1991
First Class: 1975 - 1991

Teams:

Mumbai (Regional)
India (Country)

Vengsarkar leads Indian win (MCG, 1986)

Dilip Vengsarkar: Scored three successive centuries at Lords

Dilip Vengsarkar was born on 6th of April 1956 at Rajapur, Maharashtra.

He was a right hand batsman who first came to attention when playing for Bombay in 1975. He scored a sparkling 110 in an Irani Trophy match at Nagpur, taking the fight to Bedi and Prasanna.

Vengsarkar made his Test debut against New Zealand at Auckland in Jan 1976 scoring 13. He made his ODI debut in the same tour at Christchurch. He scored 16 runs off 27 balls.

Vengsarkar cemented his spot on the tour of Australia in 1977-78. He scored consistently, posting 320 runs in the series at 35 without a breakthrough hundred. He scored the first of his 17 Test hundreds in his 17th match against West Indies, at Calcutta in 1978-79, adding a record second-wicket stand of 344 with Gavaskar.

He scored his first century at Lords against England in 1979. He went to score three Test hundreds at Lord’s, the only overseas player to do so. After his 3rd century at Lords in 1986, Wisden honoured him as one of the five Cricketer of the Year in 1987 writing “this tall, elegant batsman reached his zenith in the summer of 1986 when his two hundreds, one at Lord's and another at Headingley".

Vengsarkar was a member of 1983 World Cup winning team.

His golden period was the two years between 1985 and 1987 where he scored centuries against England, Sri Lanka, West Indies, Australia and Pakistan. He was ranked the No 1 Test batsman during this period by the ICC.

During a turbulent period for Indian cricket after the 1987 World Cup, Vengsarkar captained India in 10 Tests from 1987 to 1989. He lost the captaincy to Srikkant after a heavy loss in the series against West Indies. He retired after the 1991/92 tour of Australia.

Vensarkar scored 6868 runs in 116 Tests, second to only Gavaskar among Indians and the 15th highest aggregate in Test history at the time of retirement. He played 129 ODI matches, scored 3508 runs including 1 century and 23 half-centuries with an average of 34.73 runs and a highest score of 105 runs

In retirement, Vengsarkar ran a cricket academy in Mumbai. He was the Vice President of the Mumbai Cricket Association in 2003. In 2006, he was the Chairman of the Selection Committee.

Source: CricketCrowd Staff Reporter