Ajit Agarkar was among those to whom Gautam Gambhir dedicated India’s World Cup triumph. Compared to the other names he rolled out — Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Jay Shah — Agarkar was a plebeian, notwithstanding his current position as chief selector. The head coach’s praise for him was genuine.
“He (Agarkar) does take a lot of flak, but the amount of honesty he has worked with…” Gambhir said at the post-match presser. India lifting the trophy in Ahmedabad on Sunday marked a paradigm shift, the process of binning the star culture and empowering the ‘proletariat’ coming to its ultimate fruition. All along, the head coach and the chief selector were on the same page. Gambhir has ultimate control of this Indian team. Without Agarkar’s support, he couldn’t have implemented his philosophy.
This is India’s first World Cup success where the collective has superseded individuals. This team doesn’t have larger-than-life cricketers. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Even Jasprit Bumrah, the genius, wears his greatness so lightly that he is one of the boys in the dressing room — the elder statesman who has a strong voice and whom the others look up to. But Bumrah is not a prima donna. The culture established by Gambhir and Agarkar doesn’t allow one.
Rewind to India’s squad selection for the T20I World Cup a few months ago. Agarkar’s selection committee took the decision to drop Shubman Gill, the next big thing in Indian cricket, on the heels of a string of low scores. For a moment, there was a hushed silence in the media room of the BCCI’s Cricket Centre at Wankhede Stadium. Until then, Gill was the team’s vice-captain. For Agarkar & Co, performance mattered and nothing else. Gill was brought back into the T20I fold before the Asia Cup last year at the expense of upsetting an established opening combination and tweaking the team combination. It was a mistake. The course correction attested to flexibility.
Being chief selector is a thankless job. Good decisions aren’t highlighted; wrong calls draw sharp criticism. Not many months ago, Agarkar was accused of regularly travelling with the Indian team, especially on overseas tours, and not turning up for domestic cricket. Ishan Kishan’s selection for the T20 World Cup offered a total contradiction. The wicketkeeper-batsman got there by dint of his performances in domestic cricket. This World Cup saw Ishan’s coming of age. Credit should be given where it is due.
Over the last couple of decades, Indian cricket has seen some high-profile former cricketers taking up the chief selector’s position. Dilip Vengsarkar and Krishnamachari Srikkanth were the two most prominent names on the list. Agarkar’s tenure has been the most talked about. He took over in mid-2023 following Chetan Sharma’s unceremonious exit. During his time, India have now won three ICC trophies — two T20 World Cups and the Champions Trophy. Lest we forget, India also reached the 2023 ODI World Cup final as the tournament’s most dominant side. The hard numbers make Agarkar the most successful chief selector as far as white-ball cricket is concerned.
As Agarkar was leaving after the T20 World Cup squad selection, this correspondent and a friend and colleague from a national daily had a private conversation with him at the car park. Asked about the downside of having an embarrassment of riches when choosing players, as certain omissions draw fan fury, he spoke about how it is always desirable to have plenty of options rather than none at all. Like Gambhir, Agarkar is also good at shutting out the outside noise. His term will come to an end in September and the former all-rounder will leave with the satisfaction of having served Indian cricket well.
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