Chetan Sharma

Making his first appearance in Tests against Pakistan at Lahore 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 in 1985.

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 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 the 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, Sharma was seen as a natural successor to Kapil Dev in the all-rounder category. By the early nineties, his bowling had dropped in pace and sharpness and his strike rate dropped considerably.

Sharma is infamously remembered for bowling the last ball to Pakistani batting great Javed Miandad in the final of the Austral-Asia cup in Sharjah in 1986. With Pakistan needing four runs to win off the final ball, Sharma bowled a low full toss outside the leg stump, and Miandad's towering, last-ball six constituted the first instance until then that an international game had ended in that manner.^[6][7] That defeat started a chain of defeats for Indian cricket team in Sharjah.

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 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.

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 Fast bowling cricket academy in Panchkula in Haryana in 2004 which closed down in 2009. Chetan is the nephew of the former Indian cricketer Yashpal Sharma.

Chetan contested the Lok Sabha (2009) polls from Faridabad on a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ticket.^[8] He came 3rd polling 18.2 percent votes. He subsequently joined the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP),^[9] and was appointed party's sports cell convener.^[10]

In December 2020, he was elected as chairman of the selection committee of Indian cricket team.^[11] Later in November 2022, he was sacked from the position after team India's exit from the T20 Cricket World Cup.^[3] However, he was re-appointed on the same post upon applying for it.^[5]

In February 2023, he courted controversy when he got filmed in a sting operation which alleged that Indian cricketers take injections to expedite their return to the national team, despite being only 80 to 85% fit; he also revealed that Virat Kohli lied to media in 2021 that BCCI removed him from ODI captaincy without discussing to defame then BCCI president Sourav Ganguly.^[2] He resigned from the post of chief selector a few days after the release of sting operation.^[12]

• Chetan Sharma at ESPNcricinfo
• Christopher Martin-Jenkins, The Complete Who's Who of Test Cricketers