The most talked-about man in Indian cricket on Thursday wasn’t in the room. Or even in the city.
As the BCCI’s high-powered review meeting unfolded in Mumbai, Ajit Agarkar – chairman of the senior selection committee and a son of the city – was nowhere to be seen. His empty chair did more to stir the cricket ecosystem than most official briefings manage in a month.
The board moved quickly to douse the flames.
“Today, he was out of station, so he could not be a part of the meeting. The meeting was called at very short notice, and our chairman of the selection committee, Ajit, was not in town. So he could not join the meeting, and he was in an area where he could not join online either, despite our best efforts,” BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia said.
On paper, that should have been the end of it. A logistical issue. A last-minute meeting. Poor connectivity.
But this is Indian cricket. An empty frame invites a thousand stories.
A Chair, A Signal, A Storm
Only a few days earlier, Agarkar had chaired an online selection committee meeting to pick the T20I squad for the three-match series against Afghanistan. He was visible, available, and firmly in charge.
On Thursday, when the BCCI top brass gathered in Mumbai, he was not just physically absent. He was unreachable. Not even a video call.
That contrast lit up social media. Timelines filled with theories, many of them racing far ahead of the facts. Some handles went as far as to declare that Agarkar was on his way out as chief selector.
Saikia pushed back strongly.
“Today, we did not have any selection meeting. There was no such discussion in today’s meeting,” he said, stressing that the agenda did not touch the selection panel at all. He later added, “I do not want to give any fodder to the speculators.”
The message was clear: no selection debate, no decision on Agarkar, no drama behind closed doors.
Outside those doors, though, the questions refused to go away.
The Rohit Shadow
The curiosity around Agarkar is not born of one missed meeting. It has been simmering since the Rohit Sharma episode, when reports emerged that the selectors had told the former captain to retire from T20Is, only for the BCCI to step in.
That incident, never fully aired in public, cast a long shadow over the relationship between the selection committee and the board’s power centre. In that context, any development involving Agarkar is now viewed through a sharper, more suspicious lens.
So when he skipped a high-profile review in his own backyard, the dots were joined instantly, even if the lines were imaginary.
Term, Talk and the Road to 2027
Strip away the noise, and the picture is far more stable.
Agarkar is currently said to be overseas. Multiple sources maintain that no changes are expected to the selection committee. The indication, from within cricket circles, is that he will complete his term, which runs until next July.
There is even talk that he could be given an extension through to the 2027 World Cup, scheduled for October-November that year. That, though, has not been independently verified, and remains in the realm of possibility rather than certainty.
For now, the board’s public stance is firm: no upheaval, no shake-up, no imminent exit.
Back to the Ground
The next time the cameras look for Agarkar, they should find him.
He is expected at the Duleep Trophy final, starting September 6 in Chennai. The plan is for him to be at the five-day red-ball game, alongside a couple of his fellow selectors, to run the rule over domestic talent.
Two other members of the panel are likely to be in Delhi, keeping an eye on the T20I series against Afghanistan. The selection committee, on duty in two cities, doing the job that rarely makes headlines until controversy strikes.
Agarkar has hardly been a recluse. During the recent Test series in Sri Lanka, television cameras kept picking him out in the stands, his reactions scrutinised almost as closely as those of the players in the middle.
On Thursday, he was just as central to the story – only this time, the cameras had nothing to show. And in Indian cricket, that kind of silence is never allowed to last for long.
