Under Ajit Agarkar's tenure, India won 2 T20 World Cups and one Champions Trophy.
During Agarkar’s tenure, India won two T20 World Cups in 2024 and 2026 and the ICC Champions Trophy in 2025. While India had an amazing run in white-ball cricket, they had a poor outing in Tests, losing two home series to New Zealand and South Africa, and are struggling to make it into the WTC 2027 final.
Also, the Indian team saw some big names bid goodbye to one or other format in international cricket. Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli retired from Tests and T20Is, Ravindra Jadeja retired from T20Is, and R. Ashwin retired from all formats of cricket while Agarkar was at the helm of the selection panel.
Shubman Gill was named India captain in Tests and ODIs, while Shreyas Iyer took over T20I captaincy of the Indian team.
Ashwin, who bid goodbye to international cricket in 2024 during the tour of Australia, revealed that he spoke with outgoing selector Ajit Agarkar after his retirement, and the latter told him it was a 'personal decision.' Despite being phased out by the selection committee, he believes Agarkar did a decent job.
“Honestly, I know Ajit Agarkar quite well, and we also talked during the time of my retirement. I called him and said that I am going to retire, and then he said that he felt it was a personal decision. The fact is, Ajit Agarkar had to take a lot of big decisions in this stint; he had to phase out senior players, and that can’t be easy.
I was one of the senior players phased out during his tenure, but still, by keeping some distance from that, I want to say that he has been a very good chairman of selectors,” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.
Ashwin also said that while people speak from their own ego, they never put themselves in others' shoes.
“If we look at what all he has done with the team. Many times, we always talk from an ego’s point of view, or from our personal relationships, but we all make the mistake of not putting ourselves in their shoes," the former Indian cricketer added.