Chetan Sharma

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Chetan Sharma

India
Personal information
Batting style Right-handed batsman (RHB)
Bowling style Right arm fast medium
Career statistics
Tests ODIs
Matches 23 65
Runs scored 396 456
Batting average 22.00 24.00
100s/50s 0/1 1/0
Top score 54 101*
Overs 578.2 472.3
Wickets 61 67
Bowling average 35.45 34.86
5 wickets in innings 4 0
10 wickets in match 1 n/a
Best bowling 6/58 3/22
Catches/stumpings 7/0 7

As of 26 December 2005
Source: [1]

Chetan Sharma pronunciation  (born 3 January 1966 in Ludhiana, Punjab) was a medium pace bowler who represented India in cricket.

Sharma was coached by Desh Prem Azad, a Dronacharya Award winner, who was also the mentor of Kapil Dev. Despite being only 5' 8" tall, the bearded Sharma was one of the fastest bowlers in India during the 1980s.

He made his first class debut for Haryana at the age of 16 and appeared in one day internationals a year later. Making his first appearance in Tests against Pakistan at Lahore in 1984, he took a wicket with his fifth ball in Test cricket. He took fourteen wickets in the three Tests in Sri Lanka in 1985. Later that season in Australia, with India needing a win in the last match of the league to qualify for the final of the World Series Cup, he played a match-winning innings of 38*.

Sharma bowled the last over in the final of the Austral-asia cup in Sharjah in 1986. With Pakistan needing four runs off the last ball to win, he bowled a low full toss outside the leg stump, which was hit for six by Javed Miandad.

Sharma was an important member of the Indian team that defeated England 2-0 in 1986. He took sixteen wickets in the two Tests that he played. He took 10 wickets at Birmingham, including a career best 6 for 58 in the second innings. It remains the only ten wicket haul by an Indian in England. Though only twenty at this time, he picked up frequent injuries which restricted his career. When available, he was the first choice as the opening bowler with Kapil Dev for the next three years.

For his ability to get useful runs down the order that too at quick rate, Chetan was seen as a natural successor to Kapil Dev in the all-rounder category. By the early nineties, his bowling lost on pace and its sharpness and his strike rate had dropped considerably especially on Indian grounds.

In the Reliance World Cup in 1987, Sharma took the first hat-trick in the history of tournament when he clean bowled Ken Rutherford, Ian Smith and Ewen Chatfield of New Zealand off consecutive balls. He played the most noted innings of his career against England in the Nehru Cup in 1989. Sent in at No.3 with India facing a target of 256, he scored a 101* in 96 balls, completing his hundred with the match-winning run. He made another important contribution in India's win against Australia in the next match, sharing an unfinished partnership of 40 runs with Manoj Prabhakar and ending the match with a six. But his bowling had waned considerably and he was excluded from the tour of Pakistan a few weeks later.


Career record First-class List A
Matches 121 107
Runs scored 3,714 852
Batting average 35.03 24.34
100s/50s 3/21 1/2
Top score 114* 101*
Balls bowled 19,934 4,504
Wickets 433 115
Bowling average 26.05 31.42
5 wickets in innings 24 1
10 wickets in match 1 n/a
Best Bowling 7/72 5/16
Catches/Stumpings 71 10
As of 26 December 2005
Source: [2]
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Sharma received few opportunities thereafter. In one of his last international appearances, against New Zealand in a three nations tournament in 1994 he ended up with figures of 1-0-23-0 after being hit for five fours off consecutive balls by Stephen Fleming. He moved from Haryana to Bengal in 1993 and stayed there till the end of his career in 1996.

After his retirement, Chetan became a cricket commentator. He opened a cricket academy in Panchkula in Haryana in 2004. Chetan is the nephew of the former Indian cricketer Yashpal Sharma.

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