With Jaydev Shah’s appointment as the skipper for the India A team touring Israel next month slowly becoming a talking point, selection committee chairman Dilip Vengsarkar today stressed that the Saurashtra batsman had been picked purely on his performance in the domestic season.

Jaydev is the son of BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah.

“He is the winning skipper of the Saurashtra team which won the Ranji one-dayers just months back. And he has also scored two centuries. He deserves to be the skipper,” Vengsarkar told the The Indian Express. Jaydev scored 293 runs in seven matches at an average of 41.85 in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, but in Ranji Trophy matches he aggregated 262 from 13 innings at just 21.83.

Saurashtra made it to the semi-final of the Ranji Trophy for the second time ever last season, mainly due to the contribution of Jaydev’s team mates Cheteshwar Pujara, who was the Super League’s highest scorer with 807 runs at 73.36, and Sitanshu Kotak, who aggregated 579.

Two all-rounders from the Saurashtra team — Rakesh Dhruv and Ravindra Jadeja — managed better averages than Jaydev. Jadeja had 195 runs in eight innings at 24.37 and Rakesh Dhruv 307 runs in 12 innings at 27.19.

Other batsmen in the squad who will play under Jaydev on the Israel tour — Delhi’s Rajat Bhatia (525 runs), wicketkeeper Yogesh Takawale (419), Hyderabad’s D Ravi Teja (653) and Tamil Nadu’s M Vijay (582) — all had extremely successful Ranji seasons with the bat.

“If Niranjan would’ve tried to push for his selection, then I would have been the first person to drop Jaydev. He is a good cricketer and it will be sad to not pick a player because his father is an honourary in the board,” Vengsarkar said.

... contd.