Ashton Agar, an Australian left-arm spin bowler, believes that it is time for him to seek beyond the safety net of representing his country and explore new prospects in a world where franchise cricket is dynamic like his countrymen who have been successful in leagues across the globe.
Agar, 30 years old, is a player on Australia’s Americas T20 World Cup roster and is one of those in consideration to wear the green and yellow shirt throughout the tournament.
Agar has played five Test matches and about seventy limited-over games during his over decade-long career. The most memorable among these was undoubtedly his amazing 98 against No.11 in the Ashes series of 2013.
However, despite having players like David Warner, Mitchell Starc, Glen Maxewll , Pat Cummins amongst others who became household names overnight through franchises such as Indian Premier League (IPL), albeit not this cricketer as he has never left Australian cricket fraternity.
“What I’ve learnt is that you can’t cling on to safety in your skills and then your contracts,” Agar said on Unplayable Podcast at cricket.com.au.
“I’ve done that before – it’s when your cricket goes downhill if you hold onto safety or security,” added Agar, who played against Namibia in Namibia last week ahead of T20 World Cup warm-up game.
Over the past 1.5 years, Agar has only played three international matches across all formats-none of which were T20Is though.
He turned down negotiations with Western Australia or Australia for the first time since his move from Melbourne to Perth in 2012 implying he wants better opportunities elsewhere.
“A lot of people will do what I just did a few days back. We’ll see more next year; more again two years later – because that’s how things are going to be done with cricket.”
“Because there’s so much T20 cricket around the world, guys aren’t going to want to take contracts that lock them into certain things,” he added.
Agar was part of the Australian squads in 2021 and 2022 T20 World Cups held respectively in UAE and Australia but played just one match each tournament. He hopes to be a part of playing XI in the T20 World Cup along with his best friend Adam Zampa who is also a bowler.
“(Messaging from national selectors) had been really positive the whole way through that if we are going to take two spinners I would be there,” said Agar.
“So I was preparing for most of the summer with this at the back of my mind. That’s nice because it gives you a little bit more time mentally to wrap your head around it and prepare,” reflected Agar.
