About Chetan Sharma
Chetan Sharma was a bowler who used to play for the Indian cricket team. He was born on 3rd January 1966 in Ludhiana, Punjab. His cricket coach used to be Desh Prem Azad. Interestingly, Desh Prem also used to be the mentor for legendary Indian cricketer Kapil Dev.
Although he was born in Punjab, he played first-class cricket for Haryana and West Bengal. He made his first-class debut when he was just 17 years old. He made his international debut as a part of the Indian ODI team against the West Indies on 7th December 1983.
If we talk about his test debut, he made it against rival Pakistan on 17th October 1984. The match took place in Lahore. Interestingly he dismissed Pakistani batsman Mohsin Khan in his very first over. This made him the 3rd cricketer in the history of Indian cricket to have taken his very first wicket in the first over.
In the next year, he showed his talent by managing to take 14 wickets in just 3 test matches in Sri Lanka. In 1986, he was an integral part of the team which defeated England by 2-0. He took a whopping 16 wickets in both these tests.
He took ten wickets in the Birmingham Test. Chetan Sharma also took a 10 wicket haul against England. His performance was great while he played but he was greatly affected by the injuries that he sustained.
In the 1987 cricket World Cup, he managed to take the first-ever hat trick of the tournament. He achieved this feat while playing against the New Zealand cricket team.
It wasn’t like that he performed well only while bowling. He scored 101 runs against the England cricket team in the prestigious Nehru Cup.
Chetan Sharma Test Debut
Chetan Sharma made his test debut against the Pakistan cricket team. By taking a wicket in his very first over, he created history. In that game, Pakistan won the toss and opted to bat first. Where they put up a massive total of 428 runs with a loss of 9 wickets.
Chetan was one of the best bowlers who managed to take 3 wickets in this innings. Pakistan managed to make such a big total due to the excellent innings of their skipper Zaheer Abbas. He scored 168 runs.
The Indian first innings meanwhile were not that great and they were all out on just 156 runs. Only skipper Sunil Gavaskar and Dilip Vengsarkar managed to score some decent amount of runs. India was then invited to follow on in which they managed to score 371 runs for 6 wickets. This was made possible due to the century of Mohinder Amarnath.
Chetan Sharma ODI Debut
On 7th December 1983, Chetan Sharma made his ODI debut against the West Indian cricket team. Where he picked 3 wickets. The match was held in Jamshedpur.
India won the toss in that game and they opted to bowl first. West Indies managed to score 333 runs in their innings thanks to the innings of Sir Viv Richards (149 runs), Sir Gordon Greenidge (115 runs), and Jeff Dujon (49 runs). If we talk about the Indian bowling, then Kapil Dev was the most successful bowler of all as he took 3 wickets while maintaining an economy rate of 4.89. Madan Lal and Ravi Shastri also managed to take 1 wicket each. The Indian cricket team meanwhile did not manage to chase the set target although some of their batsmen performed well.
Sunil Gavaskar (83 runs), Ashok Malhotra (65 runs), and skipper Kapil Dev (44 runs) tried their very best but failed to make sure that India reached the set target.
Chetan Sharma Head of Selection Panel
Chetan Sharma was named as the head of the Indian cricket team’s selection panel by the BCCI on 24th December 2020. The BCCI’s CAC (Cricket Advisory Committee) which had members as Sulakshana Naik, Rudra Pratap Singh, and Madan Lal had a virtual meeting to select three members for the BCCI’s team selection committee.
They made a choice and decided that Debashish Mohanty, Abey Kuruvilla, and Chetan Sharma were the best fit for the committee. They further made a clarification and said that Chetan Sharma would be heading the trio as he was the most senior player of the three based on the number of test matches played.
Their recommendation will stay valid for the next 1 year and their performance will be reviewed then. These three selectors will be joining Harvinder Singh and Sunil Joshi under the selection committee. Interestingly, Ajit Agarkar also wanted to become a selector but eventually, he was not given the chance.
