Vikrant Gupta, one of India’s most followed cricket journalists, has made his position clear. The time has come for BCCI to review head coach Gautam Gambhir and chief selector Ajit Agarkar as a leadership unit.
His stance is not sudden. It is the result of watching Indian cricket’s slide over the past year.
India won the T20 World Cup in March 2026. Since then, the team has lost a T20I series to Ireland for the first time ever. They went to England and lost another T20I series, with the heaviest defeat in their T20I history coming in the third match at Trent Bridge. England bowled India out for 77, winning by 125 runs.
Once again Vikrant Gupta has been tracking the Gambhir-Agarkar partnership closely since 2024. In November 2025, he wrote on X that the duo were overstepping their authority.
“Ajit Agarkar and Gautam Gambhir are really stooping low. First they forced Rohit and Virat into Test retirement, then removed Rohit from captaincy even after 2 ICC trophies. Now they have sidelined Mohammad Shami from Tests for no reason, despite him still being India’s best bowler.”
Vikrant Gupta (@vikrantgupta73), X/Twitter, November 5, 2025
The England series defeat has brought his critique to a new level. Across his Sports Tak episodes in July 2026, Vikrant Gupta has questioned the management’s selection consistency, especially around the dropping of Sanju Samson just weeks after he was India’s Player of the Tournament in the T20 World Cup win, and the repeated batting order collapses where five wickets fell inside the powerplay in the third T20I.
The selection calls have been hard to follow. Sanju Samson was dropped for the Zimbabwe T20Is immediately after the England series. Young Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was picked for the Ireland tour and did not get a game. The batting order in England has looked unsettled match after match. What Vikrant Gupta calls the “Gambhir-Agarkar test” refers to how they apply different standards to senior and younger players, and that inconsistency is at the heart of the review he believes BCCI must conduct.
A recent piece on the selection controversy Vikrant Gupta highlighted during the Ireland tour covered how Vaibhav was benched and Tilak Varma’s position was protected. The dropping of players like Sanju Samson while others get extended runs has become a recurring pattern under this management.
The BCCI has now stepped in. On July 10, the board confirmed that a review meeting will be held after the England T20I series concludes on July 19. BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia described India’s recent form as a “bad phase” and said no knee-jerk decisions would be made. But the fact that a review has been called at all suggests the board shares some of the concerns Vikrant Gupta has been raising.
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Gambhir was appointed head coach in July 2024 on a three-year contract that runs until the 2027 ODI World Cup. Agarkar’s tenure as chief selector was extended after the T20 World Cup win. Between them, they have reshaped Indian cricket. They removed Rohit Sharma from ODI captaincy. They oversaw the Test retirements of Kohli and Rohit. They built a younger T20 side under Shreyas Iyer.
The results of that reshaped side have been mixed. A T20 World Cup win at home. But also a historic home Test whitewash against New Zealand, a Border-Gavaskar Trophy loss in Australia, and now back-to-back T20I series defeats to Ireland and England.
What a review would examine is the central question Vikrant Gupta has put forward. Selection consistency is one part. Team culture is another. Reports have emerged of tension between Gambhir and Agarkar on selection matters. The broader point is whether the Gambhir-Agarkar partnership has delivered enough since the T20 World Cup high to justify the decisions they have taken.
Vikrant Gupta was one of the first journalists to publicly question the direction of Indian cricket under this duo. The BCCI review means his question is now being asked inside the boardroom as well.
Sources:
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- Vikrant Gupta (@vikrantgupta73), X/Twitter, November 5, 2025 Lalluram
- Vikrant Gupta, Sports Tak, July 2026 India Today
- BCCI to review India’s T20 performance after England series Kushan Sarkar, Rediff, July 10, 2026 Rediff
- India’s falling graph after T20 WC win prompts review Hindustan Times
- BCCI uses 2 words to describe Shreyas Iyer-led India’s T20I slump NDTV Sports
- Vikrant Gupta on Gambhir and India’s NZ whitewash Samachar4media
- Ajit Agarkar, Gautam Gambhir should step down gracefully Livemint
