New Delhi: The former fast bowler for India, Ajit Agarkar, has been named chairman of the Indian men's team selectors. The position had been open since February after Chetan Sharma resigned following a sting operation carried out on him by an Indian television network. Agarkar, 45, took over for Sharma.
Agarkar is the fifth member of the men's selection committee for India, joining S Sharath, Shiv Sunder Das, Salil Ankola, and Subroto Banerjee. Agarkar, who has participated in 191 ODIs and 26 Test matches, is the panel's senior member and will serve as chairman in accordance with BCCI regulations. Choosing the team for the five T20I matches against the West Indies that begin on August 3 is their first task.
According to reports, the three-person Cricket Advisory Committee, made up of Ashok Malhotra, Sulakshana Naik, and Jatin Paranjape, who conducted the interviews on Monday, unanimously decided to go with Agarkar. Whether Agarkar was the only candidate for the position for which the BCCI had issued an advertisement with a deadline of June 30 could not be confirmed.
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Agarkar, who has also played four T20 Internationals for India, will serve as chairman of selectors for the second time. He previously did so for Mumbai from 2017 and 2019. For the previous two years, Agarkar was a member of the Delhi Capitals coaching staff; however, they have since broken up.
According to reports, the three-person Cricket Advisory Committee, made up of Ashok Malhotra, Sulakshana Naik, and Jatin Paranjape, who conducted the interviews on Monday, unanimously decided to go with Agarkar. Whether Agarkar was the only candidate for the position for which the BCCI had issued an advertisement with a deadline of June 30 could not be confirmed.
Agarkar, who has also played four T20 Internationals for India, will serve as chairman of selectors for the second time. He previously did so for Mumbai from 2017 and 2019. For the previous two years, Agarkar was a member of the Delhi Capitals coaching staff; however, they have since broken up.
India is a team that is transitioning, and the uncertainty surrounding their selection committee has only made that feeling worse. Following Chetan's semi-final defeat in the T20 World Cup, the BCCI broke with tradition and asked for new candidates for the position of chairman, breaking with tradition of granting a chairman two terms.
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However, the board was unable to find a superior candidate, and Chetan was re-elected as head of selectors only after a sting operation resulted in his resignation, which the BCCI has never acknowledged.
Due to Agarkar's appointment, the panel now includes two selectors from the West Zone, with Ankola serving as the other. There is no mention of selectors being nominated on a zonal basis in the BCCI constitution, which was drafted in accordance with the recommendations of the RM Lodha-committee; just that the five of them must have been retired for at least five years and played a specific amount of matches.
The BCCI has a long-standing unwritten policy of choosing a selector from each of the five zones, but the job posting never made it clear that a candidate from a particular zone was desired.
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