Ajit Agarkar, the BCCI chairman of selectors, has been asked by the board to stay back in Australia and work on a plan that properly chalks out the future of Indian cricket.
As per a report carried out by The Times of India, Agarkar will be in Australia for the entire five-Test series, during which he and Gautam Gambhir will work closely to ensure that all boxes are ticked. Amid talks that there’s been ambiguity in terms of player selections and tactics, the idea behind Agarkar staying back is to ensure that he and the head coach are on the same page.
One area, in particular, that Gambhir and Agarkar need to consider is how India’s transition will proceed. After India’s 0-3 drubbing at the hands of New Zealand, reports had emerged that the time seems to have started ticking on the future of some of India’s senior players and that Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja could well have played their last Test together on Indian soil. With all four cricketers in their late 30s – and Rohit, Kohli and Jadeja having already retired from T20Is – the BCCI is expected to summon them and discuss their future, including how long they want to continue.
This becomes all the more important because right after the Australia Tests conclude, the focus will move to the Champions Trophy, which is scheduled for a February start. Kohli and Rohit are still active ODI players and will surely gun for glory, but it becomes tricky in July, when the third edition of the World Test Championship kicks off with India’s five-match series against England. By the end of it, Rohit would be 39 and Kohli 38. And then there’s of course the 2027 World Cup in South Africa.
“Both Agarkar and Gambhir know that such poor performance in India will trigger widespread criticism, which is justified. Since it’s a long tour, both can sit together and discuss how things can be taken forward after the tour. Both will need at least a year and a half to build a team with strong backup. That’s where both have to be on the same page about the process,” TOI quoted a BCCI source.
“These senior players are still a very important part of the team but one may expect some tough discussions as well. The seniors will be kept in the loop about the vision of the selectors and coach. They will be asked to share how they plan their careers going into the next World Test Championship cycle and the ODI World Cup being about two years away.”
A team of T20 specialists the way forward for India
Being a T20 World Cup winner and having lifted the IPL trophy thrice – twice as captain and once as mentor – Gambhir’s idea is clear: to have a bunch of specialist T20 players in the squad going forward. India have been exceptional in T20Is this year, winning the World Cup in June and finishing with an astonishing 24-2 win-loss record. It’s important to note that post the World Cup, while India have beaten Zimbabwe 4-1, blanked Sri Lanka 3-0 and recently defeated South Africa 3-1, players such as Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya have remained absent – Suryakumar Yadav missed the Zimbabwe leg. This becomes a challenge for Gambhir because while Hardik and Bumrah are still valuable assets for India in T20Is, they are multi-format players, representing India in other formats.
With Sanju Samson, Abhishek Sharma and Tilak Varma rising to the occasion, eventually, the youngsters will come to the fore more. But with India hosting the T20 World Cup in 2026, identifying a core group of players becomes all the more crucial.
“The T20 format requires specialists but there are a few players like Bumrah, Pant, Jaiswal and Gill who can’t be ignored. Most of the T20I series are played against weaker opponents or teams who also rest topline players. There is a line of thought that the youngsters are in the T20 team then have to make way for the Test players when they are available,” the source added.
