Ramesh Powar fills Agarkar’s seat, but Pragyan Ojha’s 24 Tests make him India’s chief selector
Ramesh Powar has been named to India’s men’s selection committee in Ajit Agarkar’s old West Zone seat, and Pragyan Ojha will chair the panel.
Oct 20, 2026
The BCCI’s cricket advisory committee, Ashok Malhotra and Jatin Paranjape, interviewed five candidates at the board’s Mumbai headquarters and recommended Powar unanimously. Board secretary Devajit Saikia announced the appointment on Monday, 19 October. Wasim Jaffer, Salil Ankola, Jacob Martin and Connor Williams were the others interviewed.
Powar takes the West Zone seat that Ajit Agarkar held until his term ended on 4 October. He does not take Agarkar’s title. That goes to Pragyan Ojha, who has been on the panel since September 2025 and was already running it on an interim basis.
Why Ojha, and not the new man
India’s chief selector is not picked separately. The chair goes to whoever has played the most international cricket, with Tests counting first. Powar played two Tests and 31 ODIs between 2004 and 2007. Ojha played 24 Tests. That settles it.
It also explains why Jaffer’s application mattered. He played 31 Tests, so if the committee had gone with him, he would have walked straight into the chair. The vote for Powar was, in practice, a vote for Ojha as chief selector too.
Ojha’s interim panel has already done the most visible work of the season. It named the squads for the all-format tour of New Zealand, which starts with five T20Is on 22 October. The full committee now reads Ojha, Shiv Sunder Das, RP Singh, Ajay Ratra and Powar.
A coach on the panel
Powar is an off-spinner from Mumbai who retired in 2015 and has spent most of the years since in coaching. He had two spells as head coach of India’s women’s team, which won an Asia Cup and a Commonwealth Games silver under him, and he has coached Mumbai and Gujarat. He has also worked as a bowling coach at the BCCI’s Centre of Excellence.
The Hindu had him as the front-runner before the decision was announced. Selectors spend most of their season watching domestic cricket, and Powar has spent much of the last decade in domestic dressing rooms. That probably counted for more than his two Tests.
The next vacancy is not far off
The panel will not stay like this for long. Das is nearing four years, the maximum a selector can serve. That means another round of applications and interviews soon after this one, and possibly another question about who chairs.
Das has played 23 Tests, one fewer than Ojha. His seat is an East Zone one, and whoever fills it would need more than 24 Tests to take the chair. If the board wants a bigger name at the top of the committee, that is the vacancy to watch.
The BCCI’s farewell to Agarkar listed three ICC trophies, two Asia Cup titles and back-to-back Asian Games golds. Ojha’s first squads as the permanent chair are already picked. They start in Christchurch on Thursday.