Desh Azad (2 February 1938 – 16 August 2013) was an Indian

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er and cricket coach.

Cricket career

He played nineteen

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

matches representing

Haryana Haryana (; ) is an Indian state located in the northern part of the country. It was carved out of the former state of East Punjab on 1 Nov 1966 on a linguistic basis. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with less than 1.4% () of India's land ar ...

, Maharaja of Patiala's XI and Southern Punjab between 1953 and 1973 in which he scored 658 runs and took eight wickets. He also served as match referee in two Under-19 matches between India and Australia in 2005.

Coaching career

However, it was as coach that he was best known. India's 1983 World Cup winning captain

Kapil Dev Kapil Dev Ramlal Nikhanj (Pronunciation: əpiːl deːʋ born 6 January 1959) is an Indian former cricketer. He was a fast-medium bowler and a hard-hitting middle-order batsman, and was named by ''Wisden'' as the Indian Cricketer of the Centu ...

was the most famous of his students. The other cricketers he coached included

Chetan Sharma Chetan Sharma (born 3 January 1966) is a former Indian cricketer and politician who played Tests and ODIs as a fast bowler for Indian cricket team. On 24 December 2020, he was elected as Chairman of the selection committee of Indian cricket tea ...

who took the first

hat-trick A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three wic ...

Cricket World Cup The Cricket World Cup (officially known as ICC Men's Cricket World Cup) is the international championship of One Day International (ODI) cricket. The event is organised by the sport's governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), e ...

history,

Yograj Singh Yograj Singh (; born 25 March 1958) is an Indian actor and the former cricketer who played one Test and six One Day Internationals for India as a right-arm fast-medium bowler. His debut Test was at Wellington against New Zealand which India ...

and

Ashok Malhotra Ashok Omprakash Malhotra (born 26 January 1957) is a former Indian cricketer who played in seven Test matches and 20 One Day Internationals from 1982 to 1986. He used to be the highest scorer in Ranji Trophy at one time. He was also said to b ...

. In 1986, he was honoured with the

Dronacharya Award The Dronacharya Award, officially known as Dronacharya Award for Outstanding Coaches in Sports and Games, is sports coaching honour of the Republic of India. The award is named after Drona, often referred as "Dronacharya" or "Guru Drona", a ch ...

for his services to cricket coaching.

References

External links

* 1938 births 2013 deaths Indian cricketers Patiala cricketers Southern Punjab cricketers Haryana cricketers Cricketers from Amritsar Recipients of the Dronacharya Award {{India-cricket-bio-1930s-stub