Former Indian all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin has showered praise on Ajit Agarkar for taking some tough calls during his tenure as the chief selector. During Agarkar’s reign, star players like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravichandran Ashwin announced their Test retirement.
Furthermore, Suryakumar Yadav was also dropped after leading India to T20 World Cup glory as he wasn’t in the best of forms.
Meanwhile, Agarkar has not agreed to extend his contract, which would expire on October 4, 2026. Under Agarkar’s tenure, India has won two T20 World Cups in 2024 and 2026 and the Men in Blue have also won the 2025 Champions Trophy.
Agarkar has played a key role in starting the transition period of the team across all formats.
“Honestly, I know Ajit Agarkar quite well, and we also talked during the time of my retirement. I called him and said that I am going to retire, and then he said that he felt it was a personal decision. The fact is that Ajit Agarkar had the responsibility to take a lot of big decisions in this stint; he had to phase out the senior players, it cannot be easy. I was one of the senior players phased out during his tenure, but still by keeping some distance from that I want to say that he has been a very good chairman of selectors. If we look at what all he has done with the team,” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.
“Many times we always talk from an ego’s point of view, or from our personal relationships, but we all make the mistake of not putting ourselves in their shoes. What did Ajit Agarkar do? He was looking for a next-generation team. His responsibility was to make the team win as much as possible, but it was also his responsibility to produce the next line of players. He did not make any mistakes there,” he added.
On the other hand, Ashwin reckons one of the current selectors will take over as the chief selector role from Agarkar.
“We always talk after selection that this player should be here, that player should not be there, and all of the mistakes. But I think all the decisions that he took were from his heart. So I think his stint as chairman of selectors was a very good one. Whoever comes next, it will be even harder because they will have to build rapport with the team management. Whoever is already on the selection committee, one of those guys will become chairman, I feel,” Ashwin opined.
RP Singh, Pragyan Ojha, Ajay Ratra and Shiv Sunder Das are part of the selection committee.
