Delhi: It is not that all the decisions taken by Ajit Agarkar after becoming the Chief of India’s Senior Selection Committee proved to be right. These decisions were not liked by everyone. Still, it has to be acknowledged that after becoming the Chief Selector in 2023, Ajit Agarkar took decisions in preparation for the future of Indian cricket, without worrying about what the reaction would be to it. The specialty is that if a mistake is made, they do not stand firm and they also have the courage to correct it. If there is talk of white-ball revolution in Indian cricket today, a lot of credit for it will go to him.

Ajit Agarkar is completing three years as the Chief Selector and there are both successes and failures in the balance sheet. If they won three ICC trophies, they lost to New Zealand and South Africa in Tests on their own pitches. The blame for this will not be on them because after all the players play on the ground. Ajit Agarkar at least saved himself from the charge of choosing ‘favourites’.

Yes, they definitely made a mistake in the T20 International by promoting Shubman Gill at the expense of Sanju Samson and the team suffered losses due to the breakup of the Samson-Abhishek Sharma partnership. Perhaps in Gill’s case, this decision was a part of the scheme to make him captain in all three formats, which did not sit right. When this was realized, the mistake was rectified in such a way that Gill, despite being a tremendous talent, was shown the way out of the team. Ishaan Kishan was called back. Not every selector takes such decisions.

A lot has been written about Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, but their exclusion from Test cricket was in some way or the other a part of the selectors’ scheme. For this, along with him, Gautam Gambhir was also criticized but the approach of preparing for the future cannot be faulted. The biggest thing is that after India’s victory in the Champions Trophy, Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav did not bear the ’emotion’ card after India’s victory in the T20 World Cup and looked towards the future. While Surya’s bat was not scoring runs as before, it was also seen whether Surya would survive till the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 and the next T20 World Cup? Even Surya’s supporters will not hold Ajit Agarkar wrong in this regard. Therefore, these decisions were taken keeping ICC events in mind. Surya first got the benefit of this scheme and now he himself got out of this scheme. Surya’s poor form forced the selectors to think about this and take action.

So the mantra is clear that to whom credit should be given, give full support to him but where there is deficiency then think ahead and take action. Incidentally, both Gautam Gambhir and Ajit Agarkar do not support the star culture in the team and in their view, the team needs only those who will play well. It doesn’t matter to them what a player has done before, what his popularity chart is, what wave of support is going on for him in the country.

There are two more good examples which deserve mention. There is no confidence in the fitness of Mohammed Shami. No matter what Bhuvneshwar Kumar did in IPL 2026 and everyone said that he should return to Team India, this factor had no impact on Ajit Agarkar’s committee. His thinking is whether Bhuvneshwar will remain such a good bowler till the two big T20 tournaments of 2028? If you’re not confident in the answer to this question, then why take the risk on him and instead choose someone who fits into the team’s 2028 scheme.

It is a very old trend that Indian selectors generally do not deserve praise and their mistakes or unsuccessful decisions are remembered more than their right decisions. How will you remember Ajit Agarkar on this criterion? It will always be recorded in his account that he thought about the team and no one else was in the favorite list. Gave more importance to the game and not to the player. Somewhere, there has been some change from the selectors also, that is why the drought of not winning the ICC trophy which has been going on for 11 years continued till 2024 and ended after his arrival.