Gambhir, Agarkar and both captains are in Mumbai on Thursday, and Rohit’s ODI future is on the agenda
The BCCI has called its head coach, chief selector, Centre of Excellence head and both captains to Mumbai on Thursday, after T20I series defeats in Ireland and England. The places of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja in the 2027 plan are part of it.
Sep 2, 2026
Gautam Gambhir, Ajit Agarkar and VVS Laxman have been called to Mumbai on Thursday. So have Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer, the two men who now captain India in the three formats between them. BCCI president Mithun Manhas and secretary Devajit Saikia are running the meeting.
Nobody has published an agenda. What has leaked out is the shape of it: India’s white-ball form away from home, the injury list, and what the next year and a bit looks like with a 50-over World Cup at the end of it.
The results that got everyone summoned
Start with the record, because the record is what is driving this. In June, India lost a T20I series 2-0 in Belfast to an Ireland side that had never beaten them in eight previous attempts. That ended a run of sixteen T20I series without defeat stretching back to a 2-3 defeat to West Indies in 2023.
Then England. Rain washed out the opener, England won the other four, and India lost four matches in a single bilateral T20I series for the first time. England took the number one T20I ranking off them on the way. Shreyas Iyer had been captain for a matter of weeks. The ODI leg went England’s way 2-1 as well.
The Test side, oddly enough, is the part that is working. India beat Sri Lanka by 165 runs in Galle in August, with Manav Suthar taking ten in the match, and drew in Colombo to take the series 1-0. Whatever is being reviewed on Thursday, it is not the red-ball team.
Rohit, Kohli and Jadeja
The line that has travelled furthest is that Rohit Sharma’s ODI future is on the table, along with Virat Kohli’s and Ravindra Jadeja’s. All three are now one-format cricketers. Rohit retired from T20Is in 2024 and from Tests in 2025, and lost the ODI captaincy to Gill in October 2025.
He has been answering this question for the better part of a year. In July at Lord’s he answered it with a bat, making 138 off 110 balls, his 34th ODI hundred and the first ODI century by an Indian at the ground. Asked afterwards about the retirement chatter, he called it noise and said he intended to keep turning up.
He turns 40 next April, in the World Cup year. That is the actual conversation, and it is not one a selection panel can put off much longer if it wants a settled top order by then.
The injuries, and who keeps getting hurt
Four of the fifteen picked for the Afghanistan T20Is need fitness clearance before they can play. Hardik Pandya picked up a leg niggle in rehab at the Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru, was told to stop bowling, and will miss that series, which starts on 13 September. Jasprit Bumrah’s workload has been managed series by series for so long that Agarkar has reportedly asked for actual timelines rather than another round of case-by-case calls.
Reports around the meeting point at communication gaps between the players, the medical staff and the selectors, which is why Laxman, who runs the Centre of Excellence, is in the room rather than just Gambhir and Agarkar. Bengaluru has taken plenty of criticism for the number of players who break down soon after being cleared.
Agarkar’s own job is on the same agenda
Agarkar’s term as chief selector runs out this month, and the BCCI takes the final call at its annual general meeting on Friday 18 September. Reports point both ways: one section of the board wants Gambhir and Agarkar kept together through the 2027 World Cup, another would move Laxman into the chief selector’s chair.
The calendar does not leave much room for a rebuild either way. India go to New Zealand from 22 October for five T20Is, five ODIs and two Tests, twelve matches in all, the biggest inbound tour New Zealand have ever staged by number of games. That is the last long look at this squad before the World Cup year starts.