Former Indian Skipper, Dilip Vengsarkar has been elected as the new Chairman of the National Selection Committee replacing Kiran More. Another former Test Cricketer, Venkatapathy Raju is the new inclusion in the Selection Committee in place of South Zone’s VB Chandrasekhar. The other three Selectors are Bhupinder Singh (North Zone), Sanjay Jadgale (Central) and Ranjib Biswal (East). The tenure for this Selection Committee will be two years up to September 2008. The BCCI has also named legendary all rounder Kapil Dev as the new Chairman of the National Cricket Academy Board replacing Sunil Gavaskar.
The 50-year-old Dilip Vengsarkar had played 116 Tests scoring 6868 runs at a healthy average of 42.13. He had scored 17 fifties and 35 50s in the 185 innings in his 16-year-old Test Career. Vengsarkar had also featured in 129 ODIs scoring 3508 runs at an average of 34.73 with one hundred and 23 fifties. He had led India in 10 Test Matches from 1987 and 1989. His colleague, Venkatapathy Raju is the current Vice-President of the Hyderabad Cricket Association. He is a former left arm spinner who took 93 Test wickets at an average of 30.72 in 28 Tests. He has also taken 63 ODI wickets in 53 games. Raju had retired from first class cricket only in 2004/05 to end up with 589 wickets.