Chetan Sharma (born 3 January 1966) is a former 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 st ...

er and

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who played Tests and ODIs as a fast bowler for

Indian cricket team The India men's national cricket team, also known as Team India or the Men in Blue, represents India in men's international cricket. It is governed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), and is a Full Member of the International ...

. On 24 December 2020, he was elected as Chairman of the selection committee of

. Sharma was coached by Desh Prem Azad, a

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 c ...

winner, who was also the mentor of

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 Cen ...

and is currently mentoring Venkatesh Iyer and

Shardul Thakur Shardul Narendra Thakur (born 16 October 1991) is an Indian international cricketer. He is a bowling all-rounder who bats right-handed and bowls right arm medium pace. Domestic career Thakur was initially criticized for his lack of height for ...

. He is the current chairman of senior selection committee.

Domestic career

He made his first class debut for

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi Language, Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also Romanization, romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the I ...

at the age of 17 and appeared in One Day Internationals a year later. He was the first man to take a hat-trick in ODI world cup. He achieved this feat in 1987 Reliance World Cup against New Zealand.

International career

Making his first appearance in Tests against Pakistan at

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second List of cities in Pakistan by population, most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th List of largest cities, most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is th ...

in 1984, he bowled Mohsin Khan with his fifth ball – becoming the third Indian to take a wicket in his first over in Test cricket. He took fourteen wickets in the three Tests in

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

in 1985. Later that season in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

, with India needing a win in the last match of the league to qualify for the final of the

World Series Cup The Australian Tri-Series was an annual one day international (ODI) cricket tournament held in Australia, and contested by Australia and two touring teams. The series was the primary format for international one-day cricket throughout most of t ...

. Sharma was an important member of the Indian team that defeated

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2–0 in 1986. He took sixteen wickets in the two Tests that he played. He took 10 wickets at

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, including a career best 6 for 58 in the second innings. It remains the only 10 wicket haul by an Indian in England. He also is one of the few Indian pacers, like his mentor Kapil Dev, to take a 5 wicket haul in his 32 over spell to end with 5-64 and also have his name permanently etched in the Hall of Fame board at Lord's Cricket Ground. 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 dropped in pace and its sharpness and his strike rate had dropped considerably.

1987 World Cup

In the Reliance World Cup in 1987, Sharma 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 w ...

in the history of tournament when he clean bowled Ken Rutherford,

Ian Smith Ian Douglas Smith (8 April 1919 – 20 November 2007) was a Rhodesian politician, farmer, and fighter pilot who served as Prime Minister of Rhodesia (known as Southern Rhodesia until October 1964 and now known as Zimbabwe) from 1964 to 1 ...

and

Ewen Chatfield Ewen John Chatfield (born 3 July 1950) is a former New Zealand cricketer. A medium-pace bowler, though Chatfield played 43 Tests and 114 One Day Internationals for his country, he is also remembered for having been hit in the head by a ball w ...

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off consecutive balls.

Post World Cup

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

in the next match, sharing an unfinished partnership of 40 runs with

Manoj Prabhakar Manoj Prabhakar (born 15 April 1963) is a former Indian cricketer and Coach, who recently coached Nepal National Cricket Team. He was a right-arm medium-pace bowler and a lower-order batsman, and has also opened the innings sometimes for the I ...

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.

Late career

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 Stephen Paul Fleming (born 1 April 1973) is a New Zealand cricket coach and former captain of the New Zealand national cricket team, who is the current head coach of Indian Premier League team Chennai Super Kings. He is considered one of the g ...

. He moved from Haryana to Bengal in 1993 and stayed there till the end of his career in 1996. Sharma is also infamously remembered for bowling the last over in the

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of the

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in Sharjah in

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. With Pakistan needing four runs off the last ball to win, he bowled a low

full toss A full toss is a type of delivery in the sport of cricket. It describes any delivery that reaches the batsman without bouncing on the pitch first. A full toss which reaches the batsman above the waist is called a beamer. This is not a valid ...

outside the

leg stump In cricket, the stumps are the three vertical posts that support the bails and form the wicket. ''Stumping'' or ''being stumped'' is a method of dismissing a batsman. The umpire ''calling stumps'' means the play is over for the day. Part of t ...

, which was hit for six by

Javed Miandad Mohammad Javed Miandad PP SI (Urdu: ; born 12 June 1957), popularly known as Javed Miandad (Urdu: ), is a Pakistani cricket coach, commentator and former cricketer known for his unconventional style of captaincy and batting. ESPNcricinfo desc ...

. That defeat started a chain of defeats for

Sharjah Sharjah (; ar, ٱلشَّارقَة ', Gulf Arabic: ''aš-Šārja'') is the third-most populous city in the United Arab Emirates, after Dubai and Abu Dhabi, forming part of the Dubai-Sharjah-Ajman metropolitan area. Sharjah is the capital ...

After cricket

After his retirement, Chetan became a cricket commentator. He opened a Fast bowling cricket academy in

Panchkula Panchkula (PKL) is a planned city and district headquarter in the Panchkula district, part of the Ambala division in Haryana, India. The origin of the name Panchkula came from the place where five irrigation canals meet. Panchkula establis ...

in Haryana in 2004 which closed down in 2009. Chetan is the nephew of the former Indian cricketer Yashpal Sharma. Chetan contested the

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(2009) polls from

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on a

Bahujan Samaj Party The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is a national level political party in India that was formed to represent Bahujans (literally means "community in majority"), referring to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes (OBC), al ...

(BSP) ticket. He came 3rd polling 18.2 percent votes. He subsequently joined the

Bharatiya Janta Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Mo ...

(BJP), and was appointed party's sports cell convener. In December 2020, he was elected as Chairman of the selection committee of Indian cricket team. Later in November 2022, he was sacked from the position after team India's exit from the Cricket World Cup.

References

* * Christopher Martin-Jenkins, ''The Complete Who's Who of Test Cricketers'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Sharma, Chetan 1966 births Living people India One Day International cricketers One Day International hat-trick takers Cricketers at the 1987 Cricket World Cup India Test cricketers Indian cricketers North Zone cricketers East Zone cricketers Bengal cricketers Haryana cricketers Cricketers from Ludhiana Indian cricket coaches Victoria Sporting Club cricketers Indian cricket commentators M Parkinson's World XI cricketers