Agarkar appears to have chaired his last BCCI selection meeting
BCCI senior chief selector Ajit Agarkar appears to have chaired his final selection committee meeting for the Board of Control for Cricket in India as his tenure draws to a close early next week. A little over a week earlier, the Agarkar-led panel named squads for three ODIs and five T20Is against West Indies and selected the Rest of India side for the Irani Cup.
Rohit Sharma was included in the ODI squad, and it is widely perceived that Rohit’s continued presence in the team is a principal factor behind Agarkar’s decision not to seek an extension, according to the report. Agarkar was appointed chairman in July 2023 and began his term with a cordial working relationship with Rohit Sharma and then-head coach Rahul Dravid, generating considerable optimism about a cohesive leadership group.
That initial period coincided with strong white-ball results: India reached the home 50-over World Cup final in 2023 before losing to Australia and then completed an unbeaten campaign to lift the T20 World Cup in Bridgetown in June 2024. Dravid’s tenure had ended after the defeat to Australia but he was persuaded by the BCCI and by a phone call from Rohit to remain until the T20 World Cup concluded.
After Dravid stepped away and V.V.S. Laxman declined the head-coach role, Gautam Gambhir was appointed and brought a different vision that reportedly aimed to build a younger Test side excluding senior figures such as Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and R. Ashwin. Friction surfaced in Gambhir’s second series in charge when India lost 0-3 at home to New Zealand in October-November 2024, and the subsequent tour of Australia ended in a 1-3 defeat during which Ashwin retired mid-series, Rohit withdrew himself for the final Test in Sydney and both Rohit and Kohli announced their Test retirements in May 2025.
Agarkar’s panel then accelerated a transition by appointing Shubman Gill as Test captain; Gill’s first assignment, an away tour of England, yielded four centuries including 269 in Birmingham and a total of 754 runs as India salvaged a 2-2 draw. The selectors also reported strong returns from Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna, with India’s wins on that tour coming when Jasprit Bumrah was rested to manage his workload.
The selection committee moved Gill into the white-ball setup as T20I vice-captain to Suryakumar Yadav and installed him as ODI captain last October. Between the Australia Test series and IPL 2025 India won five consecutive matches to claim the Champions Trophy in Dubai in March, a run the report says was guided by Rohit, but Agarkar’s panel judged a leadership change necessary with the next 50-over World Cup two years away, after which Rohit’s international future was repeatedly scrutinised.
Tensions escalated in England in July when Rohit was widely expected to announce his retirement after the three-match series ending at Lord’s, and BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia publicly stated that Lord’s would not be Rohit’s swansong. The report says that public intervention angered Agarkar, strained his relationship with the board from mid-July and preceded his absence from a BCCI review meeting at the start of this month; Saikia defended the no-show by citing personal reasons.
The review of Agarkar’s 38-month tenure is mixed: India won two T20 World Cups, two Asia Cups (one in each of the 50- and 20-over formats) and reached the home 50-over World Cup final, while Test results included home series defeats by New Zealand and South Africa (2-0 last November) and the 1-3 loss in Australia in 2024-25, offsetting a 1-0 victory in Sri Lanka last month. The report highlights perceived instability in bowling, intermittent white-ball selection choices such as Shreyas Iyer’s return as T20I captain, and reported breakdowns in communication between Agarkar and Laxman at the Centre of Excellence over India A and other selections; it adds that Laxman was reportedly not consulted over the Asian Games squad despite it being clear many months earlier he would be the coach in Aichi-Nagoya.
If Agarkar departs, a new chairman will be required ahead of squad selections for the tour of New Zealand, which begins with the first of five T20Is in Christchurch on October 22 and for which the team is expected to depart Bengaluru on October 18; that tour will be followed by five ODIs and two Tests. The report indicates the frontrunner for the role is former India wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel, and whoever succeeds Agarkar will face the immediate task of managing relations with the two captains and the head coach while selecting teams for the upcoming New Zealand tour.