Cricket fans with keen memories might remember Agar’s Test debut for Australia. Despite being first and foremost a bowler (a left-arm orthodox spinner) he scored 98 off 101 balls from number 11 in the first match of the 2013 Ashes Series against England at Trent Bridge in Nottingham.
In doing that, he broke the record for the highest score for a number 11 batsman in a Test match and the record for the largest 10th-wicket partnership for his stand with Phil Hughes. It was quite remarkable. It was a dream debut come true.
Who was this bright, floppy-haired young talent with a glint in his eye and how good would he become? With every young star that breaks into the national team and performs, there’s that glimmer of hope - was he the one? The next great bowling all-rounder perhaps?
As it turned out, Agar never became a star of the Test side or even a regular player - far from that, really. In his career, he’s only appeared in five Test matches to date, having largely played second fiddle to off-spinner Nathan Lyon (35) and then, more recently, even third fiddle to leg-spinner Mitchell Swepson (29). He's taken just nine Test wickets at an average of 52.
In limited-overs cricket, however, he’s been much more present and valuable, albeit behind Adam Zampa (30) in the pecking order for the last few years. Agar has played 20 One Day Internationals (ODIs) and 47 Twenty20 Internationals (T20Is) and has proven himself to be a dependable and economical bowler in both formats. Clearly, his strengths lie with the white ball in hand.
Despite having more success in the shorter forms of the game, Agar has remained in the frame for Test selection of late and was picked to tour both Sri Lanka and Pakistan last year. More recently, he was a member of the squad for the December/January series against South Africa. He played in the final match in Sydney when the selectors opted for two spinners (a rarity in home conditions). However, his returns in that match were uninspiring - he lacked a degree of control and failed to pick up a wicket.
In the years leading up to that rare appearance in the baggy green in Sydney, Agar had barely been playing first-class cricket. In fact, before that match, he had played just three first-class matches since October 2020. He had, it seemed, become a white-ball specialist.
Despite this glaring reality, he was selected for the ongoing tour of India along with Lyon, Swepson and the young bolter, off-spinner Todd Murphy (22) from Victoria.
The Australian selectors had chosen a diverse quartet of specialist spinners. Lyon was obviously the first choice. Swepson had been treated as the second in line on the previous two Asian tours but Agar had played in the most recent Test prior to India and so was perhaps level-second or third choice.
Off spin, leg spin and a left-arm option - it was a nice spread of skills. Murphy, it seemed, was the fourth choice - perhaps just there for the experience or as a backup. That was the reasonable suspicion when the touring squad was announced.
When the first Test started in Nagpur, however, that suspicion was thrown out the window. The selectors went for Lyon and Murphy. The latter had seemingly impressed the selectors so much in training that he was catapulted into the side despite being the least experienced and the same kind of spinner as Lyon (superficially speaking). Agar was overlooked and murmurs emerged that he just hadn’t been up to scratch in the nets.
After the loss in Nagpur, Swepson had to leave the tour for the birth of his first child and another spinner was called up in his place before the second Test in Delhi. In came Matthew Kuhnemann (26) - another left-arm spinner who had played four ODIs for Australia but only 15 first-class matches for his state Queensland.
Many were as surprised as they were confused. Why did Australia need another left-arm spinner and an inexperienced one at that? Was Kuhnemann cover for Agar? Would he even play a role? Were the selectors panicking after a crushing opening loss and departing from their original plans?
Much to the alarm of many, Kuhnemann was thrown straight into the team for the second Test ahead of Agar as the Aussies tried a three-man spin attack, mirroring their opponents. They lost the match but Kuhnemann did enough to justify the faith suddenly shown in him.
Australia’s selector-on-tour, Tony Dodemaide (59) said of the decisions: "From a pure selection point of view, it's not so much why one person isn't selected, it's about what the alternatives are.
"And in the calls we had to make, we felt that there were better alternatives. In the first Test with Todd (Murphy), we decided to go with the two and two structure of quicks and spin. And then for the three spinners between (Agar) and Matt (Kuhnemann) in the second Test, we just felt that Matt's style would be better suited…it was a very close call though."
What then for Agar?
Shortly after the second Test, Agar was told he could leave the tour entirely. He returned home with Dodemaide having explained that "his red-ball bowling is not quite where he wants it to be."
Agar promptly appeared for his state Western Australia (WA) in a one-day match but then wasn’t even picked for their next first-class encounter with off-spinner Corey Rocchiccioli (25) preferred ahead of him. So much for gathering experience with the red ball then.
From being trusted in Sydney to being picked for the India tour, Agar had seemingly plummeted down to fifth place (or even much lower) in Australia’s spin-bowling stocks and then even out of his state XI entirely.
Agar remarked upon his return to Australia: “Obviously, it's not an ideal situation but you just try to make the best of it.
”I’m 29 now, and I've been through plenty of ups and downs in the game and we're in a fortunate position, so it's nothing that stresses me out too much.
"It was clear messaging from (the selectors). They communicated really well with me and it's a clear path forward. With that message it's chin up, walk tall and just try and improve. So that's just what I'm going to do."
He's obviously a grounded individual and he’s taken the disappointment in his stride. It’s certainly not all over for Agar, either. He is due to appear in the domestic one-day cup final for WA on Wednesday and then return to India for the ODI series which starts on the March 17th. What’s more, he will probably be included in Australia’s squad for the 50-over World Cup (also in India) later this year.
Like so many modern players navigating the ever-shifting three-format terrain, Agar’s career is a microcosm of the way the cricket landscape has morphed to prioritise limited-overs formats and the specific skills associated with them.
It might just be that he hasn’t devoted enough time to the red-ball craft in recent years and he can be forgiven for that, such is the growth rate of white-ball commitments globally. Perhaps Test cricket just doesn’t factor into a player like Agar’s top priorities, perhaps it's not what pays his bills.
Or maybe his was just a bad selection in the first place or a case of poor player management as has been suggested by some voices in the media. It’s hard to say because it's impossible to know exactly how things unfolded behind closed doors in India.
Whatever the truth of what happened on tour, it's been a rather inglorious and rapid fall from relative grace for a player that burst onto the international scene all those years ago and looked destined for a substantial career in whites.
His measured and mature statements aside, it must have been a very long and lonely trip home. When you take into account the emotional toll such successive and public demotions could take on someone’s self-esteem - it’s all quite a sad story.
The kind of story you would never dare think of when you dream wildly as a child of being taken on a Test tour one day. The kind of story that doesn’t get told too often. The type that will quickly be forgotten as all the actual cricketing narratives fill up the headlines and drown us in newer, bigger and better drama.
So, is the tale of Agar some uncomfortable omen we should be heeding? Is it somehow emblematic of the way T20 cricket is consuming its older and more prestigious brother? Is it yet another death knell of sorts for the five-day game? Well, maybe but probably not.
More than anything, this is just a very unfortunate, very human story of one person taking an unexpectedly sharp downward turn on his career path. And before we get too carried away with the implications of it all, let’s not forget that for every Agar there’s a Kuhnemann or a Murphy and, sometimes, a Kuhnemann and a Murphy, as in Australia’s current case.
The point is - there will always be someone fulfilling their wildest dreams in sports. That’s one of the reasons why we watch sports and why we love them - it's a chance to see dreams materialise.
But it doesn’t hurt to spare a thought for the others - the lost souls, the forgotten players in the background, the unheralded, unselected ones, the ones on a plane back home. The ones whose sporting dreams are no longer brilliant, living realities but rather just dreams again - softly slipping through their fingers like the sands of time until they are confined once again to recesses deep down inside them.
Australia and India's fourth and final Test begins on Thursday in Ahmedabad.
