The words on Rohit Sharma’s T-shirt were difficult to miss: “Non-committal?”
The former India captain was promoting his latest television show when the shirt caught the internet’s attention in September, and the reaction was swift. Fans linked it to the debate over his place in the 2027 ODI World Cup and to comments widely attributed to Ajit Agarkar, who had been at the centre of discussions around the futures of Rohit and Virat Kohli.
Some read it as a pointed reply to the chief selector. There was, however, no confirmation from Rohit that it was meant as a dig at Agarkar, nor any evidence that he had privately told Agarkar he was non-committal about the World Cup. Whether he intended it that way is almost beside the point. The online narrative had already taken shape, and a T-shirt was all it needed to spring back to life.
It was a neat illustration of what Agarkar’s three years as chief selector had become. A decision would be made, a player’s future would turn into a talking point, and Agarkar would find himself at the centre of the argument. Sometimes the criticism was about the cricket, sometimes about the way a decision was perceived, and often the two were impossible to separate.
Agarkar’s tenure ended on October 4, 2026, with three ICC titles to his name: the 2024 T20 World Cup, the 2025 Champions Trophy and the 2026 T20 World Cup. India also reached the final of the 2023 ODI World Cup. These are not small achievements for a selection committee to have overseen.
Yet when Gautam Gambhir wrote that “history will be kinder” to Agarkar, it was that line that stood out. Why would history need to be kinder to a selector whose tenure had delivered so much? Was the present really unkind to him?
Senior Managing Editor and Head of SportsTak Vikrant Gupta does not quite buy the premise.
“Very strong. Very strong,” was his assessment when asked whether Agarkar had been a strong chief selector.
“I think there was just one brief period when we did not have a strong chief selector. Before that, going back to Sandeep Patil, Srikkanth and Vengsarkar, you had people with stature. But after the Lodha Commission, cricketers found more lucrative opportunities in IPL coaching, commentary and various leagues. Potential selectors realised they could make more money elsewhere. That is why Agarkar is being hailed as a strong selector. But even before him, selectors were taking decisions,” he said.
Strength in a selector is not simply a matter of making a big call or being prepared to tell a senior player that his place is under scrutiny. It lies in having a view of where the team needs to go, acting on it, and accepting that the decision will eventually be judged in public.
CONVICTION AND RESULTS
Agarkar did not lack conviction; the question is whether he always got the balance right. Take Suryakumar Yadav’s appointment as T20I captain after Rohit’s retirement in 2024. Hardik Pandya had been Rohit’s deputy at the T20 World Cup and appeared the obvious successor. Agarkar and the team management backed Suryakumar instead, with Hardik’s fitness and availability among the considerations. It was not the most predictable call, but it worked: India won the 2026 T20 World Cup under Suryakumar.
That is the kind of decision that explains Agarkar’s reputation as a strong selector. He was prepared to back a view that was neither the most popular nor the most obvious, and the reward came later.
THE TRANSITION THAT BECAME PERSONAL
But a selector’s job grows considerably harder when the call involves players who have spent years defining Indian cricket. Moving on from Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli in Test cricket was always going to be more contentious than choosing a captain for a format the previous captain had already left.
Both batters struggled in Australia in 2024-25, and their Test retirements followed in May 2025, amid reports that their futures had been discussed and their performances scrutinised. The decision to look ahead was understandable: India had to prepare for life beyond two players who had been central to the team for more than a decade. But was the timing right, particularly in Kohli’s case?
MSK Prasad, who chaired the selection committee during Kohli’s peak years, felt the next generation of openers had arrived, though he was less convinced that Kohli’s Test career needed to end when it did.
“I think Virat had some more to offer in Test cricket. With youngsters like Yashasvi Jaiswal and other openers like Shubman Gill and KL Rahul coming through, the next generation had arrived. But when it comes to Virat, I still feel he had another two years of Test cricket in him,” he told IndiaToday.in.
That is a fair counterpoint, though it does not settle the question. Kohli’s stature could not guarantee him a place, but nor did a difficult run of form necessarily mean there was nothing left to offer. There is a difference between recognising that a transition must happen and deciding exactly when a player’s time is up.
The same tension ran through the decision to replace Rohit as ODI captain after the Champions Trophy. The selectors wanted to give Shubman Gill time to prepare for the 2027 World Cup, which was the stated rationale and hardly an unreasonable one. But the move was inevitably read as a statement on Rohit’s future as a player, too.
This is where the chief selector’s job becomes peculiar. A decision can be made on cricketing grounds and still turn into a referendum on a player’s standing, and once that happens, the person announcing the call often becomes the target, even when it has been discussed with the captain, coach and board.
Agarkar was frequently the public face of the selection committee. Senior journalist Rahul Rawat pointed out that, although the panel included former international cricketers of repute, among them RP Singh and Pragyan Ojha, it was Agarkar who often communicated with the captain and head coach. That visibility could make it seem that every decision was his alone.
“There were times when Agarkar seemed rigid, there were times when it seemed that he was ready to learn from his mistakes,” Rawat said.
WILLING TO ACCEPT MISTAKES
The Gill experiment in T20 cricket is a useful example. After becoming Test and ODI captain, Gill returned to the T20I side as vice-captain, but his inclusion disrupted the successful opening combination of Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson. Samson struggled to settle in the middle order, while Gill did not find his best form at the top.
Before the 2026 T20 World Cup, the selectors dropped Gill and brought in Ishan Kishan. Agarkar maintained that the decision was about form and the balance of the side, including the need for another wicketkeeper-batter, rather than a verdict on Gill’s overall ability. India went on to win the tournament, with Samson producing big performances in the knockout stages.
“So that tells you that Ajit Agarkar was ready to learn from his mistakes. But then there were times, perhaps like Rohit Sharma and other occasions, when it seemed that he was a little rigid, rigid when I say that he would back his instincts,” he said.
KEEPING OUTSIDE NOISE AWAY
Is being India’s chief selector a tough job? MSK Prasad, a former chief selector himself, doesn’t think so. “I don’t think selection is a tough job,” he says, arguing that the key is to have a clear vision and spend months planning for the decisions that eventually get made around the table.
It is a straightforward answer about a job that often appears anything but, particularly when every selection call is scrutinised and every omission becomes a debate.
“For me, we never heard any outside noise,” he said.
“A selector should have a vision, and the committee should work like a mission for that vision. When you have a clear-cut vision and have identified the players who are going to serve Indian cricket for the next 10 years, where is the pressure?
“Our selection committee meetings lasted barely five to 10 minutes because we had worked for six months towards those meetings.”
Agarkar’s challenge was to show that same clarity while dealing with the demands of Indian cricket in the social media age. The scrutiny around Rohit and Kohli was not simply about whether the two should be selected. It was about whether the selectors were treating them fairly, whether the transition was being handled properly and whether the team was planning for the future at the expense of the present.
The “non-committal” episode became a symbol of that unease. The phrase was widely attributed to Agarkar in public discussion, but that is not proof that Rohit had privately told him he was unsure about the 2027 World Cup. The T-shirt’s meaning was never confirmed. Still, the speed with which so many people connected it to Agarkar showed how firmly he had become associated with the uncertainty around Rohit’s future.
The controversy did not end there. Ahead of the 2026 England ODI series, reports suggested that Rohit had been told the Lord’s match could be his last. He scored a hundred in that game, after which BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia denied that any such communication had taken place. Reports later linked Agarkar’s departure to tensions over Rohit’s future and the selector’s authority.
There is no need to turn that episode into a conspiracy. The facts are limited, and the private conversations remain private. But the wider question is worth asking: how much room does a chief selector have to make an unpopular call when the player involved is one of the biggest names in Indian cricket?
Vikrant Gupta believes selectors are often forgotten once a team succeeds. The captain is remembered for lifting the trophy and the coach for leading the campaign, while the selector’s contribution, though it built the team in the first place, is far less visible.
“Do you know the name of the chief selector when Greg Chappell took over as the Indian coach? Kiran More was the chief selector; nobody will remember his name because Greg Chappell came in, so the coach became important,” he said.
“When India won the 2013 Champions Trophy, you remember MS Dhoni, the captain. Do you know the name of the coach? Duncan Fletcher.”
“The inverted pyramid in cricket means that the captain has to be the most important person, then the chief selector, and then the coach,” he added.
But visibility brings accountability, too. It would be unfair to dismiss every criticism of Agarkar as noise. The Gill experiment deserved scrutiny, the handling of the senior players raised legitimate questions, and a trophy haul cannot make every selection decision correct.
Equally, criticism is not proof of failure. Agarkar backed Suryakumar, entrusted Gill with the Test captaincy and was prepared to leave Gill out of the T20 World Cup squad when the combination was not working. Those decisions suggest a selector willing to take risks, but also one capable of revisiting them. Others will continue to debate the calls he got wrong, or the transitions he could have handled differently.
So, was he a strong chief selector? His tenure had moments of conviction, moments of rigidity and moments when he changed course. The scrutiny turned particularly personal when the futures of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli entered the conversation. Vikrant Gupta believes that is the cost of taking decisions involving India’s biggest stars.
“If you are a superstar in the modern generation because of social media, guns will be trained on those who are taking decisions, or seem like taking decisions against you. The very fact that Ajit Agarkar knew that he was maybe not welcome… And I think these are checks and balances. Otherwise, history is going to be kind to Ajit Agarkar. The present is very kind to Ajit Agarkar. What is the problem?” he said.
Perhaps history will be kinder to Agarkar. But his three ICC titles have already given him a record few selectors can claim. The T-shirt will fade from memory; the question it raised will not: in Indian cricket, can a selector ever be judged on the decisions he makes, rather than the stars those decisions upset?
– Ends
