Ajit Bhalchandra Agarkar

Profile:

He came up through the India A ranks and suddenly burst upon the scene in the late 90s as one of the most talented young all rounders in Indian cricket. A nippy medium pacer, capable of moving the ball both ways and a more than useful late order attacking batsman, Ajit Agarkar was hailed as the best thing to happen to Indian cricket for a long time. Great things were expected from this Shivaji Park product in Mumbai and Agarkar indicated that he would live upto early promise by racing to 50 wickets in one day internationals faster than anyone else - breaking the record held by none other than Dennis Lillee.

However, his subsequent record - both in Tests and ODI's - were a grave disappointment. Plagued by injuries, Agarkar was always struggling to hold his place in the side. He had a poor World Cup tournament and on his return sought advice from Lillee at the MRF Pace Foundation. Nothing seemed to help however and after a nightmarish tour of Australia, his place in the national side came under severe scrutiny. After all, it could not have been easy to come back from five successive ducks in Test cricket - four of them off the first ball faced. But Agarkar is as determined as he is talented and during the year 2000 he proved that he was far from washed up - particularly in the one day game. Towards the end of an eventful year for him, Agarkar hit the fastest half century - off only 21 balls - to surpass a famous record held by Kapil Dev, who reached the mark off 22 balls in 1983. At the start of the new millennium, Agarkar seems to have cemented his place in the side as a fiercely competitive, dependable - and sometimes even exciting - cricketer.