Agarkar’s Selection Policy: Bold Calls Over Popularity
Indian selection meetings are hard. In fact, they are almost impossible to get done without getting trolled. You need to take hard calls about players who have iconic status in the country, and in a social media age, you stand to be brutally abused and castigated. That is where Ajit Agarkar and his committee need to be complimented for standing their ground and taking some ruthless decisions. They haven’t given in to emotion and have gone about their business in the most focused manner.
I don’t agree with everything that the committee has decided, and that will always be the case. Take, for example, the Rajat Patidar non-selection. Or the ignoring of Bhuvneshwar Kumar. I believe both deserved a place. But one thing no one can fault is the intent around their decisions. Not every call will meet with unanimous approval across the country, but that doesn’t mean the selection committee is necessarily wrong on anything. Every player picked has performances to show for it, and that’s something we have to give Agarkar and his team.
The Shreyas Iyer example is perhaps the best one. Agarkar and Shreyas have a history which goes back to 2018. Things turned sour between Shreyas and Ajit, who was then a member of the Mumbai selection committee and it is well-known fact. Did they ever reconcile? The truth is, I don’t know. But like I have always said, I don’t think they need to. Shreyas has the performances to show for it, and Ajit recognised and acknowledged that while making him India’s next T20 captain. Personal likes and dislikes don’t have a place in selection, and that is something one has to give to Agarkar and his committee.
Whether we agree or not with the calls, it is a fact that to move on from players like Virat Kohli or Rohit Sharma takes a lot of doing in India. They are demigods and have cult followings. To look beyond them couldn’t have been easy. And yet it was done. Shubman Gill is another example. Yet another 700-run season with a 160-plus strike rate in the IPL. He could easily have been brought back into the T20 set-up, and yet he wasn’t. These are strong calls.
While I disagree with not picking Mohammed Shami or Bhuvi, the committee has stayed consistent all through. And not always do we have to agree on everything. They have been entrusted with a job and they are trying to do it to the best of their ability. India has been a gun white-ball side and that is what matters at the end of the day.
Agarkar, from what I know, doesn’t read what is being written about him. His policy is consistent here as well. He will read everything after he steps down from the position of Chairman of Selectors. For now, he reads nothing, for he doesn’t want to get influenced in any way. He will go by what he believes and not always will that be right. But then, we must all own our decisions. As Chairman of the Selection Committee, that’s his job: to take calls and own them.
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