Ashutosh Agashe

Ashutosh Dnyaneshwar Agashe^[a] (born 21 October 1972) is an Indian businessman and former cricketer. He has served as the chairman and managing director of the Brihan Maharashtra Sugar Syndicate Ltd. since August 2009, having succeeded his father.

Ashutosh Agashe
Official portrait, 2015
Chairman and Managing Director of the Brihan Maharashtra Sugar Syndicate
In office 3 August 2009 – Incumbent
Preceded by	Dnyaneshwar Agashe
Personal details
Born	(1972-10-21) 21 October 1972 (age 52) Pune, Maharashtra, India
Spouse	Shalini Agashe (née Phadke) ​ ​ (m. 1997)​
Parent(s)	Dnyaneshwar Agashe (father) and Rekha Gogte (mother)
Alma mater	Brihan Maharashtra College of Commerce under University of Pune (B.Com)
Cricket information
Batting	Right-handed
Bowling	Right-arm medium
Domestic team information
Years	Team
1996/97–1999/00	Maharashtra
Career statistics
Competition First-class List A Matches 5 11 Runs scored 9 26 Batting average 2.25 5.20 100s/50s 0/0 0/0 Top score 6 7 Balls bowled 588 535 Wickets 5 10 Bowling average 50.80 40.60 5 wickets in innings 0 0 10 wickets in match 0 0 Best bowling 3/20 2/26 Catches/stumpings 1/– 2/–
Source: ESPNcricinfo, 19 August 2016

A former first-class and List A cricketer, he played the Ranji Trophy for the Maharashtra cricket team from 1996 to 1999. In 1999, he also played the Belfast Cricket League for Derry, and briefly served a selector for the Maharashtra Cricket Association in 2003.

Biography

Early life and family: 1972 – 1996

Agashe was born in Pune, Maharashtra on 21 October 1972,^[1][4] into an aristocratic and entrepreneurial Chitpavan Brahmin family of industrialist Dnyaneshwar Agashe of the Agashe gharana of Mangdari,^[5] and his wife Rekha Gogte, of the Gogte gharana of Belgaum.^[6]

Through his father, Agashe is a grandson of Chandrashekhar Agashe, a nephew of Panditrao Agashe and Shakuntala Karandikar, a younger brother of Mandar Agashe, an older brother of Sheetal Agashe,^[7] of distant relation to Third Anglo-Maratha War general Bapu Gokhale,^[8] musician Ashutosh Phatak,^[9] historian Dinkar G. Kelkar, and scientist P. K. Kelkar.^[10]

Through his mother, Agashe is a great-nephew of B. M. Gogte,^[6] a first cousin to poet Rashmi Parekh, a descendant of the aristocratic Latey (Bhagwat) family, and a relation to Kokuyo Camlin head Dilip Dandekar, and academic Jyoti Gogte.^[11][12]

Agashe graduated with a B.Com degree from the Brihan Maharashtra College of Commerce.^[1] He represented his college in their cricket team.^[13] He married Shalini Phadke in 1997;^[14] she is a maternal granddaughter of the last ruler of the Kurundwad Junior princely state from the Patwardhan Dynasty.^[15]

Career in cricket: 1996 – 2000

Beginning in 1996, he played first-class and List A cricket. His batting style has been described as a right-hand bat and his bowling style has been described as a right-arm medium.^[16][17]

From 1997 to 1999, Agashe represented his home state of Maharashtra as a member of the Maharashtra cricket team playing first-class cricket in the Ranji Trophy,^[18][19] having been selected for a four-day fixture for the Ranji Trophy by the Maharashtra Cricket Association in 1998.^[20]

In 1999, Agashe further played in the Belfast Cricket League for Creevedonnell Cricket Club in Derry.^[2] He subsequently left List A cricket in 2000,^[16] having played List A for the Maharashtra cricket team since 1996.^[17]

Career in business: 2000 – present

Beginning in 1994, Agashe had been made a director at Brima Finance, before joining his father on the board of directors at the Brihan Maharashtra Sugar Syndicate Ltd. in 1996.^[21] In 1998, under him and his father, the syndicate began marketing ayurvedic medicines, health care products, and bulk raw materials,^[22] manufacturing food products and veterinary medicine,^[23] promoting ayurvedic skincare products made by its sister company, Brihans Natural Products in 2000,^[24] and manufacturing alcohol-based chemicals by 2002.^[25]

In September 2000, Agashe was appointed as a joint managing director of the syndicate.^[26] In April 2002, he contributed an essay titled अजातशत्रू (lit. 'One who has no enemies') to his father's festschrift.^[27] In 2003, he was made a selector at the Maharashtra Cricket Association, at the time, chaired by his father,^[28] which raised nepotism concerns and drew in criticism for the association.^[29][30] That same year, he was acknowledged for his support in the publication of a book about Mahavira and other Jain Tirthankaras by Shantilal Bhandari.^[31]

By 2004, Agashe was also looking after several operations of the Suvarna Sahakari Bank.^[32] That same year, he was part of his father's Maharashtra Cricket Association committee as a representative for the Club of Maharashtra,^[33] and worked as his father's aide during the controversial elections at the Board of Control for Cricket in India, when his father was not allowed to vote as vice president of the board due to alleged factionalism.^[34]

In 2005, under Agashe, the syndicate entered a partnership with Howling Wolves Wine Group of Australia which planned to set up a wine production base in India.^[35][21] At the time, he was joint managing director at the syndicate.^[36] Between 2004 and 2005, he was elected the chairman of Suvarna Sahakari Bank.^[3] and served as chairman when the bank was put under moratorium by the Reserve Bank of India in 2006.^[37] In 2007, he received the DSK Group Energy Award of 2007 for corporate implementation of energy efficiency improvement measures.^[38]

In 2008, Agashe was one of the directors implicated in Suvarna Sahakari Bank's alleged scam case. His parents, aunt and brother were taken under judicial custody,^[39] during which time his father died in January 2009. He was subsequently released on bail that same month.^[40] The bank's merger with the Indian Overseas Bank was finalised by the Reserve Bank of India later that same year.^[41][42]

Since 2009, Agashe has been director at Agashe Brothers Financing Company, and since 2010, director at Baumgarten and Wallia.^[43] In August 2009, he was appointed chairman and managing director of the Brihan Maharashtra Sugar Syndicate.^[44] In 2015, he conceived the Dnyaneshwar Agashe Trophy as the highest award of merit at the Poona Youth Club's annual cricket tournament, the PYC Premier League, in honor of his father.^[45] In May 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic in India, Agashe donated oxygen concentrators to hospitals in Shreepur, Maharashtra.^[46][47]

Published works

Essays

• Agashe, Ashutosh (2002). "अजातशत्रू" [One who has no enemies]. In Barve, Ramesh; Vartak, Taraprakash; Belvalkar, Sharchandra (eds.). पुत्र विश्वस्ताचा : गौरव ग्रंथ : ज्ञानेश्वर आगाशे षष्ट्यब्दीपूर्ती निमित्त [Putra Viśvastācā : A Festschrift : In honour of Dnyaneshwar Agashe's 60th Birth Anniversary] (Festschrift) (in Marathi) (1st ed.). Pune: Jñāneśvara Āgāśe Gaurava Samitī. pp. 1–2. ISBN 978-1-5323-4594-4. LCCN 2017322864. OCLC 992168227 – via Bowker.

Notes

1. IAST: Āśutoṣa Jñāneśvara Āgāśe. Agashe bears his father's name (Dnyaneshwar) as a middle name as per the patronymic Marathi naming conventions,^[1] but he is widely known without his patronymic.^[2][3]