The Selection Committee Chairmanship Vacancy: Ramesh Powar Is Being Brought In, but the Real Question Lies Elsewhere

On 14 October the application window closed. On 15 October the Cricket Advisory Committee finished interviewing four to five candidates. Within twenty-four hours the unannounced information was out in the open: into the panel currently under the caretaker charge of Pragyan Ojha, former India off-spinner Ramesh Powar is being brought in by co-option. The headline says he is taking Ajit Agarkar's place. But if you stop at the easy reading of journalism, you miss something larger — this is not the story of an individual's appointment. This is the story of a vacancy manufactured inside a closed institutional room. And to do the accounting on that vacancy, I had to sit outside the field at sixty-four, yet twenty years in the Barishal press box taught me where the most valuable work in cricket actually happens. The first thing to clarify is that there is no publicly published org chart telling us which panel is doing which job for the India men's team at this moment. Ajit Agarkar was the chairman. After news of his exit, Pragyan Ojha was reportedly given charge on an interim basis. Now Ramesh Powar is said to be joining the senior panel. Put those two sentences together and an unresolved question stands up: is Powar becoming chairman, or is he merely becoming a member? The headline's language is chairman-level; the body's language is member-level. Those are not the same appointment, and they do not carry the same authority. In my Barishal press box, a senior editor once told me women cannot understand tactics. That day I learned something: when someone inside an institution collapses two different classes of thing into one sentence, calling it a typo is just closing your own eyes. The board's constitutional architecture is a post-Lodha structure, where selector appointments run through the Cricket Advisory Committee. In that process, who chairs the panel needs an explicit public announcement, because chairman and member are not interchangeable. Now the record of Ramesh Powar himself. Two Tests, thirty-one ODIs. If you write those two numbers without keeping them separate, you get it wrong — the most important fact in Powar's case is that his white-ball exposure is far weighted over his red-ball exposure. In professional analysis, those two format careers must never be merged. But there is a second layer here that usually goes unseen. Two Tests does not mean weak selector. The logic is entirely false. Just as a hundred Tests does not mean strong selector — that is also false. Selection work is scouting, communication, squad balance, and long conversation with the head coach and analytics team. These skills are orthogonal to a player's own record. In fact the most valuable line on Powar's CV may not be his own bowling numbers but his experience as head coach of the India women's national team. Managing elite players, deciding under high pressure, being involved in format-by-format squad building — all of that is more relevant to a selector than Test caps. But that information is not in the source report, and I warn repeatedly: do not believe it without verification. So what really needs to be seen is the panel's collective format expertise. The hardest job of a selection committee is judging player skill on the Test measure. Red-ball technique, five-day sustained mental and physical refinement, session-by-session situational transformation — there is no substitute for understanding these, because relying entirely on analytics staff here will go wrong. As of the currently public information, who else is on the panel besides Powar is unknown. Inside that unknown lies a large hazard nobody has yet asked about — if everyone on the panel is a former player who spent most of his time in white-ball cricket, then who takes the Test-related decisions? This is not a question of format preference. It is a question of institutional accountability. Something my Barishal days taught me again and again — when people hear appointment news, they remember the name. But names are forgotten in weeks; process persists for years. In this particular episode, the word that carries the most power is "co-opted." Ramesh Powar is not being placed on the senior panel after winning an advertised vacancy — he is being co-opted, the report says. Co-option is a legitimate board power and is often used when needed. But co-option does not mean the same as competitive appointment. Competitive appointment means a candidate meets advertised criteria and beats other candidates to the seat. Co-option means he enters by internal board decision. Both are legal, but where the line is drawn needs to be clarified. My biggest concern here is not who got in, but this — where is the room for accounting in this process? Since the amendment of the Indian board's constitution, transparency in appointments has been much improved, but the use of co-option and the continuity of an interim chair on a panel is still not strictly regulated as I understand it. I say this to convey the gravity of the matter, not to accuse anyone. Now another matter that most people overlook. Wasim Jaffer, Connor Williams and Jacob Martin were interviewed. Those three names are now public, while there is still no official announcement about the appointed person. There is a problem here — those not selected are publicly entered onto the list of losers, while the person being appointed is not yet official. This is a question of the process's accountability structure, not any individual's failure. At every press conference this list raises fresh questions. As far as I know, in Indian cricket administration there have been repeated controversies over putting former players associated with media into selector panels. In Wasim Jaffer's case he is currently associated with media/broadcasting, and this is a verifiable issue under the conflict-of-interest framework. But I want to say clearly — this is not an allegation, it is a verifiable question based on publicly available information. The actual application of the board's current rules must be seen; I cannot give the correct interpretation because the source report does not mention those rules. And one more thing that catches the eye. Connor Williams and Jacob Martin — both former Baroda players. Baroda falls in the West zone. Ramesh Powar is from Mumbai, also West zone. Now the question — were these three competing for a specific zonal seat, or for one general vacancy? Zonal seats are not substitutes for one another, and each zone carries different weight. If all three were competing for the same zonal seat, then it follows that Williams and Martin could not have won because they come from the same type of background. But if that is not true, then the question arises — why was only one chosen and the others dropped? The answer to that question is not in the source report, and I will not write that answer by guessing. But asking the question matters. The committee's junior wing is still entirely unresolved. The report is not clear for which chairmanship Ramesh Powar was being considered — senior or junior. First it says he was interviewed for the junior panel, then it says he was being considered for the chairman's post, and finally it turns out he has been co-opted into the senior panel. If those three steps really happened in the case of the same person, then the committee appears to have treated the two panels as a single talent pool. That increases flexibility, but reduces transparency. And more importantly — the report also mentions the possibility that Dodda Ganesh will not get the junior chairmanship. That means the story is not one but two — a new member on the senior panel, and a chairman vacancy on the junior panel. Now I come to my biggest area of concern. If I take the timeline of 14 and 15 October and assume this report is from October 2026, then this change in the selection panel is happening roughly four months before the T20 World Cup scheduled for February-March 2026 in India. Four months, meaning one selection cycle. A new panel with an interim chairman, one co-opted member, and a vacant junior chair — if these three weaknesses rise at once while finalising a home World Cup squad, that is a genuine continuity risk. Someone may disagree with me, and I welcome that. But one question needs to be put — if responsibilities are not divided format-wise among this panel's members, then who takes the decisions under pressure? An interim chairman generally has less authority to take contested decisions — such as dropping a senior player or appointing a new captain. In that case the decision passes to the head coach and the captain. That arrangement may work somewhat on the sporting side, but administratively it blurs the boundary of accountability. Now the place where I want to question myself the most — if I argue only on this one point, that Ramesh Powar played two Tests so we are worried, then I show the worst side of my twenty years of experience. Because if I estimate a selector's competence from a player record, then I fall into the very trap I identified a moment ago when I separated Test and ODI records. If I am truly wise, then I must ask — how balanced is the panel collectively, and how directly does that connect to Ramesh Powar's career? Those two questions are entirely different. The first answer lies in the structure of the selection process, the second in his CV. And this is exactly the point where I want to admit openly the second trap I am likely to fall into. If I always argue that all Indian board decisions are made in dark rooms and everyone is hiding something, then I become like the press-box people on the other side of the same table, the ones who used to attack women for not understanding cricket. The reality is — panel appointment in the board's constitutional process is complex, with multiple stages and committees, and some information is withheld for strategic reasons. That is normal. My claim is not that everything must be disclosed, but that the gap between what is disclosed and what leaks out must be kept in view. The source report says clearly — "more information will follow" for the board. Meaning today's "favourite" is not today's appointee. This is a live, unresolved process. Any journalist who serves it up as a final decision is giving you a guess, not information. My old Barishal press-box warning comes to mind — if you write everything relying on a leak, then the day the leak goes, you go with it. Now from the career angle. If Ramesh Powar really does enter the senior panel, then his biggest relevance will be his communication with the players he has worked with. A selector has to talk to players — how they are, how their injury is healing, how they are mentally. To do that job you have to become trusted by the players. If players think this man came without any competition and our fate is in his hands, that trust will take time to build. That is why I say whether the panel chairman's role is formally announced is not merely an administrative matter — it is a matter of sports research outside the field, which ultimately affects player performance. One more thing needs to be kept in mind from my Barishal experience. In 2026 when the stadiums emptied, I understood then how much courage a crowd's roar gives a team. My 'Barishal Virtual Terrace' live programme raised 220,000 taka for 45 groundstaff — the people who pull the pitch roller onto the field on match morning, not one of whom takes part in selection committee decisions. Yet this committee determines careers of players who play on the very field where these people work. I keep thinking — if one thing can be changed in the process of forming a selection committee, it is transparency. Especially to those people who support the system from outside the system. Now to the format-specific angle, which is implicitly present in this report. If Powar is to be brought into the men's national team panel, then the question is — will each member of the panel have a separate format responsibility, or will everyone participate in all formats? The second is far more common, and it is often ineffective, because one person cannot know the subtle differences of three formats equally well. The first, dividing responsibility, is more methodical. But that requires a clearly published structure — which selector is accountable for which format. Without that structure, if someone new joins the senior panel, what responsibility he is taking will not be publicly known and therefore will not be accountable. Whether such a structure exists in the Indian board, I do not know, and I will not guess. But if this report really signals a change, then the best change would be — a public announcement clearly stating the panel structure, the chairman, and the division of responsibilities. One thing I want to say repeatedly, because it is my favourite subject — a twenty-five-year-old young producer, after working with me, made me understand that I know what the audience wants, but I do not know what is happening on the internet. That day I had to climb down from the confidence of thirty years of experience and learn to listen. In the same way, a selection committee must learn to listen to those who hold the least power in this system — non-international first-class players, A-team players, domestic cricketers. Those who know they are at the bottom of the ranking list, no one calls them, no one discusses them in the media. That is why I say, if the selection committee's process revolves only around international stars and their media profiles, then it will remain only a mirror of the press box. And my old editor never climbed down from that mirror. In money, power and influence terms, three things are running together in Indian cricket at this moment. First, the IPL auction is a price-setting process, where international match statistics directly influence a player's price. If the selection committee leans toward youth, then young players' prices will rise in the auction. But this kind of effect is speculative, because there is no specific information proving this panel will be youth-centric. Second, selection decisions are linked to the pay structure, because central contracts and status by format determine a player's standing. Third, media influence — many of those who report panel formation news also work as commentators on the panel's potential members. The relationship among those three is direct, but the source report's content lies outside it. I will not guess where there is no information. A favourite habit of mine is to leave the press box and sit in the gallery — there the crowd's eyes are sharper than mine. Once, going to watch a match, a twenty-year-old boy sat beside me who plays tape-ball cricket. I asked, whom does he want in the national team. He said, he wants someone who will play Tests and T20s too. I said, there is no such person. He said, then there is a problem in your system. That answer stuck in my mind. If even a little of that twenty-year-old boy's perspective entered the process of forming a selection panel, then the panel structure might not be in today's state. I am not saying the panel must have youth, but that a new kind of thinking must enter the decision process of panel formation. That kind of thinking is usually not born in press conferences or board rooms — it is born in the gallery. Now at the end of this piece I want to give a prediction, because I do not believe the piece is half-complete without it. My prediction is — in the end Ramesh Powar will be formally appointed to the senior panel, and Pragyan Ojha will either be regularised from interim or a new chairman will be named. The probability of Dodda Ganesh getting the junior chairmanship is lower. But the process of that appointment, the way it leaked out, which does not appear in the board's official statement — that process alone can teach us. And that teaching is a question — when the committee's chairman is interim and one of its members is co-opted, to whose call will that panel respond? Not to player performance, but to circumstance; the panel led by Pragyan Ojha is being filled by co-option with former India off-spinner Ramesh Powar. The headline says he is taking Ajit Agarkar's place. But if we stop at the easy reading of journalism we miss something larger — this is not the story of an individual's appointment. This is the story of a vacancy manufactured inside a closed institutional room. And to do the accounting on that vacancy, sitting outside the field at sixty-four, twenty years of the Barishal press box taught me where the most valuable work in cricket actually happens.