The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Tuesday (July 4) officially appointed former Indian cricketer Ajit Agarkar as the chairman of selectors for India. It was only after he stepped down as assistant coach at Delhi Capitals last week that his name was more or less confirmed before it was announced. The Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) recently interviewed him and recommended his name for the position vacated by Chetan Sharma a few months ago.
Interestingly, if Cricbuzz reports are to be believed, BCCI has agreed to hike the fee for the post of chairman from Rs 1 crore to Rs 3 crore per annum. Accordingly, Agarkar will get the said salary from BCCI. Meanwhile, it remains to be seen whether the Rs 90 lakh per annum salary for the other selectors will be increased or not. Besides this, the selection committee meeting is scheduled to be held on Wednesday in which four other selectors Shiv Sundar Das, Subroto Banerjee, Sreedharan Sharath and Salil Ankola are also expected to attend.
Ajit Agarkar’s first task as chief selector will be to pick India’s squad for the upcoming five-match T20I series against the West Indies. He has taken charge of Mumbai earlier also and has taken some tough decisions. One of the biggest decisions he will have to take is about the status of senior players in T20 cricket ahead of the T20 World Cup next year.
As far as Ajit Agarkar’s international career is concerned, he has played 26 Tests, 191 ODIs and 4 T20 matches for India. He took 58 wickets in Tests, 288 in ODIs and 3 wickets in the shortest format of the game. Agarkar has taken 10 four-wicket hauls and a few five-wicket hauls in the ODI format and also holds the record for the fastest fifty for India in just 21 balls in this format.