This is what Cricinfo had to say about him in the recent article...
"Ajit Agarkar, the former India fast bowler, will be remembered as someone who took wickets frequently but conceded an awful lot of runs. His stats - a strike-rate of 33 and economy of 5.07 - say as much. However, scroll down the table below and you'll spot Ishant Sharma, Sreesanth and Irfan Pathan, with worse economies and higher strike-rates. They'd do extremely well to get anywhere near Agarkar's 288 wickets in 191 matches."
I have always maintained, even now, that Agarkar will be an asset to this current Indian ODI team. He has an economy rate of 5 per over. Most of our current fast bowlers are close to or over 6. Plus, none of them have the experience of Agarkar. Does anyone look like even likely to get to 300 ODI wickets? Nobody (makes me sad to say this) in the current crop is consistent with the yorker. And almost all of them are slow pokes in the field and laughable with the bat.
Unfortunately I feel the reason why Agarkar has lost favor with the selectors and the team is the captain. Dhoni has chosen to trust young bowlers like Ishant, RP, Sreesanth, Praveen to augment Zaheer. A crucial point in Agarkar's career came during the first World T20 in SA. In the game against NZ, Agarkar ended up giving an expensive over when things were in India's favor. India ended up losing the game, though not entirely because of him. He lost his place from the team from the next game.
Agarkar has been a bowler who has never gotten credit for what he brought to the team. Often labelled as an expensive bowler and a batsman who got out for 5 ducks in a row. He was lucky to be with captains who looked past these weaknesses and accepted him for his strengths. Azharuddin, Tendulkar, Ganguly and Dravid all supported Agarkar even as the general public opinion was against him.
So what does Dhoni know that these other captains did not to keep him out of the team? Or is it something beyond the cricket field?
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