The end of BCCI men’s chief selector Ajit Agarkar’s tenure has opened a can of worms, with a fresh report claiming that he consciously missed a crucial board meeting earlier in this month, contrary to the board’s stance that he was unavailable due to
The former India cricketer’s contract will end this month, and though he was said to be keen on renewing initially, he got indications from the board that they didn’t want him to continue, even with one year left for the 2027 World Cup. The board is now set to look for a replacement.
One major sign that this was going to happen came in the first week of September when he skipped the BCCI meeting to review India’s performances against England and Ireland, which resulted in back-to-back series losses.
At the time, the board secretary, Devajit Saikia, said he was ‘out of station’ and could not even join the meeting virtually because he was ‘in such an area’.
“He was out of station. He could not be a part of the meeting because this meeting was called at very short notice, and our head of the selection committee, Ajit, was not in town, so he could not join it. He was in such an area that he could not join online, in spite of our best efforts,” Saikia had said.
When asked about discussions on Agarkar’s tenure, Saikia said none happened.
“There was no such discussion in today’s meeting. There was no discussion on the selection committee. Our whole focus was performance in England and Ireland, as well as the recent Test series in Sri Lanka and what we are going to do in the upcoming series, plus the World Cup, which is our ultimate goal,” he said.
However, a report in The Telegraph India now claims that Agarkar was in the ‘vicinity of Mumbai and could have joined the meeting online’. It’s now been seen as the point at which Agarkar had already made up his mind that he wouldn’t renew, even though he was later seen attending the Duleep Trophy final.
Pragyan Ojha could be interim BCCI chief selector
The report also said that even though Parthiv Patel is leading the race to replace Agarkar, the board might appoint selector and former spinner Pragyan Ojha to lead the committee on an interim basis.
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