Ajit Agarkar to brief fellow selectors ahead of BCCI meet

Mumbai: The Indian selection committee will be in full attendance for the knockout rounds of the Vijay Hazare Trophy ODIs in Vadodara, which starts with the pre-quarter finals on Thursday. The getting together of the five selectors holds significance as this is where chief selector Ajit Agarkar, who served as touring selector for the entire Australia tour, will brief his colleagues.

After taking the collective view from the selection committee, Agarkar is expected to meet BCCI officials in the coming days for the series-review meeting where captain Rohit Sharma and head coach Gautam Gambhir too will be present. The board’s Special General Meeting (SGM) is scheduled in Mumbai on Sunday where Devajit Saikia will assume charge as the new BCCI secretary.

The Australian tour, which immediately followed the 0-3 rout at home to New Zealand, was expected to decide the fate of many senior players. The 3-1 loss shut the door on India’s WTC final hopes, which is seen as a big setback. Off-spinner R Ashwin’s mid-tour retirement and return home, murmurs of team discontent on tour, Rohit’s free fall in form that resulted in his sitting out the final Test at Sydney and the prolonged lean run of Virat Kohli has left Indian cricket faced with several searching questions. All these are likely to be addressed in a number of formal and informal meetings among selectors and the administrators in the coming days.

The selectors will soon picking the squad for the white-ball matches at home against England — five T20s and three ODIs between January 22 and February 12 — before they firm up the squad for the ICC Champions Trophy starting next month.