Age should not be criteria to judge Dhoni: Vengsarkar

PANAJI
Former India captain Dilip Vengsarkar believes that age is just a number for a fit cricketer. He feels there is no need to raise hue and cry over Mahendra Singh Dhoni's place in Indian Twenty20 team.
Dhoni's position in Team India has been a subject of debate since New Zealand humbled India in Rajkot recently. The 36-year-old is however, still rated as one of the fittest members of the team, even by captain Virat Kohli, who has asserted that Dhoni is contributing to the team in every way possible.
Vengsarkar also feels, that age should not be the criteria to judge a player's usefulness to the team.
"For me, age is not a criteria. Form and fitness are very important. If Dhoni is in form and fit enough to play, he should be picked," Vengsarkar, told The Goan, on the sidelines of Ranji Trophy match at Porvorim. He is in the state in capacity of NCA director to watch Vidarbha off-spinner Akshay Wakhare and left-arm spinner Aditya Sarvate.
In a free-wheeling chat on the evolution of cricket in other parts of India, Vengsarkar explained that one cannot compare the situation prevalent in Mumbai in olden days and now, vis-a-vis the progress and emergence of other centres in the country. And keeping this aspect in mind, Mumbai cricket should not be written off. The 61-year-old stylish former Mumbai batsman is not reading too much in the most successful Ranji Trophy team's poor performance in the historic 500th match recently.
"It's an odd game basically. If you speak about consistency in performance, the team has won five titles in the last ten years. So that is very good. However, in the olden days, youngsters in Mumbai used to play alongside Test cricketers, in club or office cricket. They would improve quickly then. Nowadays, international matches are throughout the year making it impossible for the India players to represent their state, clubs or office teams. Hence, the improvement (of younger players) is bit slower than what used to be, before," explained the Arjuna and Padma Shri Awardee, who led India from
1987-1989.
Vengsarkar praised two of the most talked about cricketers in Mumbai now, Prithvi Shaw and Siddhesh Lad. While Prithvi is an opener with tremendous potential, aged 18; Siddhesh, 25, has already made a reputation for himself as the man to stave off crisis situation. It was his five-hour long vigil at the crease that helped Mumbai avoid defeat to Baroda in the historic 500th match, recently.
"Lad is quite talented. He has scored runs whenever Mumbai has required. I am sure, he must be on the radar of the selectors. Prithvi is also very talented. He is young and scoring consistently. It means he has shown excellent temperament for higher class of cricket. At this level, consistency is very important," said Vengsarkar, as he checked on the online scorecard to find out that Shaw was on his way to another century in Ranji Trophy cricket.
When asked as to how, Goa can boost their bench strength as the hosts have been struggling to prepare the next line of First-Class cricketers, Vengsarkar stressed on the importance of school and college cricket. The iconic Harris Shield school cricket tournament of Mumbai has produced greats in the past and even Shaw first came into the limelight with an aggregate of 546 off 330 balls in that famous competition in 2013. This is the tournament that had brought Sachin Tendulkar into the limelight more than two decades ago.
Can Goa revolutionise the school cricket scene, that at best can be described as ‘going through the motions', right now.