Ajit Agarkar named India men’s chairman of selectors

Ajit Agarkarthe previous India quick bowler, has been named chairman of selectors for the Indian males’s group. Agarkar, 45, stuffed the place which had been vacant since February after Chetan Sharma stepped down within the get up of a sting operation carried out on him by an Indian tv community.

Agarkar is the fifth member of the India males’s choice panel which already consists of Shiv Sunder Das, Salil Ankola, Subroto Banerjee and S Sharath. Having performed 26 Take a look at and 191 ODIs, Agarkar is the senior-most member of the panel and as per BCCI guidelines turns into its chairman. First on their plate is choosing the facet for the 5 T20Is towards West Indies beginning August 3.

Agarkar, it’s understood, was the unanimous alternative of the three-person Cricket Advisory Committee comprising Ashok Malhotra, Sulakshana Naik and Jatin Paranjape, which carried out the interviews on Monday. It couldn’t be confirmed whether or not Agarkar was the solitary applicant for the place for which the BCCI had marketed, with June 30 because the deadline.

This would be the second time Agarkar, who has additionally performed 4 T20Is for India, will play the function of chairman of selectors, having carried out the job at a smaller stage for Mumbai between 2017-19. Agarkar was a part of the teaching employees at Delhi Capitals for the final two years however they’ve since parted methods. It’s understood that the franchise didn’t renew his contract.

India are a group in transition, and the uncertainty round their choice panel has solely added to that feeling. All of it started final yr when the BCCI moved away from the conference of giving a boss two phrases and requested for brand new purposes for Chetan’s function following the semi-final loss within the T20 World Cup. However, the board failed to draw a greater possibility, and re-elected Chetan the chairman of selectors just for the sting operation resulting in his resignation, which has by no means been acknowledged by the BCCI.

Agarkar’s appointment leads to the panel having two selectors from West Zone, Ankola being the opposite one. Within the BCCI structure, drafted as per the RM Lodha-committee suggestions, there is no such thing as a point out of selectors being appointed on a zonal foundation; simply that the 5 of them ought to have been retired for at the least 5 years and performed a sure variety of matches. Whereas the BCCI has adopted an unwritten rule of selecting a selector from every of the 5 zones historically, the commercial for the function by no means specified it was on the lookout for a candidate from a particular zone.