He came in to international cricket in 1998 with a reputation as an emerging all-rounder. He was a 21-year-old from Mumbai. The promise shown was not entirely fulfilled, but he was a force with the ball in ODIs. Ajit Agarkar overtook Dennis Lillee as the fastest to 50 wickets in this format. His record of 23 matches has since been bettered by Nepal’s Sandeep Lamichhane (22) and Sri Lanka’s Ajantha Mendis (19).
At the age of 44, and 16 years after his last international outing, Agarkar is back in the mainstream of Indian cricket. The position of chief selector is crucial. It’s this person’s job to ensure that inputs from the other selectors are properly processed and decisions taken accordingly. It’s this person’s task to head a system which selects the men’s senior national teams, under circumstances where it’s impossible for at least one selector to be physically present in every match in every format.
Agarkar’s biggest challenge after taking over the chair lying vacant since Chetan Sharma’s controversial exit in February is the restructuring of the teams in all formats. There may not be too much room for experiments when it comes to this year’s World Cup. But the new World Test Championship cycle, next year’s T20 World Cup, and the next 50-over team — this selection committee has an enormous amount of work to do. Not just when it comes to finding fresh faces, but in carefully handling the more sensitive mission of phasing out the ones they consider over the hill. There will be big names to deal with, which makes Agarkar & Co’s work more challenging.
This is one of the trickiest tests for selectors. They cannot overlook reputation and past records. At the same time, they have to think of the future and decide how long a veteran keeps playing. There are not many uncapped players who can be termed future international prospects. So Agarkar and other selectors will have to start from scratch in certain cases. Plus, there is the spectre of injuries, which means they also have to be in constant touch with the rehab specialists.
Other than the unprecedented and odd decision to not yet replace West Zone’s Salil Ankola from the committee with someone from North Zone, because Agarkar is also from West –despite the Lodha Committee scrapping zonal quotas, the unwritten rule has always been one from each of the five zones – there are encouraging signs in the appointment of the new chairman of selectors. Agarkar seems to be a fair choice.
He is the only one in the selection committee to have actively played T20 cricket, including the Indian Premier League. This is not a qualification, but indicates that he has been in direct touch with this form of the game. He is the closest to contemporary concepts and thoughts among his fellow selectors. Since he played his last first-class game in 2013, it can also be expected that he is aware of the modern training methods and fitness drills, and understands the mentality of today’s cricketers. Plus, he has the experience of donning the selector’s hat for Mumbai.
In theory, Agarkar ticks many boxes. But as was ironically seen in his playing career, it’s something to have talent, and something else to convert that into consistent performance. Despite all that ability he had, barring ODIs to an extent, Agarkar the international cricketer sparkled usually after long intervals. There were days to remember, but few and far between.
In his new role, that experience may be useful for Agarkar. He has seen success and failure at the top level, and knows the gap between potential and performance. More importantly, at 44, he is in the right mental space to judge the merits and demerits of the old and the new. He has enough playing and non-playing experience to understand what makes the right mix.
And last but not the least, two former chief selectors from Mumbai before Agarkar — Dilip Vengsarkar and Sandeep Patil — did well during tough times. Vengsarkar handled a part of the Greg Chappell era, and took the bold decisions like bringing back Sourav Ganguly and baptising Ishant Sharma when he was barely out of his teens. Patil oversaw the previous transition phase, when stalwarts including Sachin Tendulkar retired. Agarkar seems to have what it takes to do a good job. Will he be able to do it? Let’s see.