Ajay Sharma

Ajay Kumar Sharma (pronunciation ) (born 3 April 1964, in Delhi) is a former Indian cricketer.

Ajay Sharma
Personal information
Full nameAjay Kumar Sharma
Born (1964-04-03) 3 April 1964
Delhi, India
BowlingSlow left-arm
RoleBatsman
RelationsManan Sharma (son)
International information
National side
Only Test (cap 182)11 January 1988 v West Indies
ODI debut (cap 64)2 January 1988 v West Indies
Last ODI16 November 1998 v West Indies
Domestic team information
YearsTeam
1984–2000Delhi
2000–2001Himachal Pradesh
Career statistics
Competition Test ODI FC LA
Matches 1 31 129 113
Runs scored 3553 424 10120 2814
Batting average 36.50 35.19 67.46 36.07
100s/50s 3/13 10/10 38/36 2/20
Top score 190 149* 259* 135*
Balls bowled 4400 3140 6438 3985
Wickets 30 45 87 108
Bowling average 240 58.33 31.01 28.37
5 wickets in innings - 1 1 2
10 wickets in match – n/a 0 n/a
Best bowling – 5/41 5/34 5/30
Catches/stumpings 33/– 26/– 94/– 43/–
Source: CricketArchive, 14 December 2009

Sharma was a prolific run-maker in first-class cricket, mainly for Delhi, scoring over 10,000 runs at the high average of 67.46.[1] Given a minimum qualification of 50 innings, only three players (Sir Donald Bradman, Vijay Merchant and George Headley) have bettered this average in first-class cricket.[2]

Domestic career

In the Ranji Trophy, Sharma scored a record 31 centuries[3] and his batting average of approximately 80 in this competition is second only to Vijay Merchant.[4][5] In the 1996-97 season, he became only the third player to score over 1000 runs in a Ranji Trophy season. He played in six Ranji Trophy finals for Delhi scoring centuries in four of them, but only twice ended up on the winning side (1985–86 and 1991–92). Sharma also regularly represented North Zone in the Duleep Trophy.

International career

Despite his domestic scoring record, Sharma only played one Test match for India - against the West Indies in January 1988.[6] He played 31 One Day Internationals for India from 1988 to 1993.

In December 1988, he scored back-to-back fifties against New Zealand, but he did not reach those heights again except for a 59 not out (his highest ODI score) against Zimbabwe in March 1993.[7] He finished with 424 runs at a batting average of 20.19. Sharma also took 15 wickets using his left-arm spin with a best of 3/41 against Australia in October 1989.[8]

Life ban

In 2000, aged 36, his career ended when he received a life ban from cricket after he was implicated in a match-fixing scandal.[9][10]

In September 2014, Sharma was cleared from all charges related to match-fixing by Delhi district court and has asked the BCCI to allow him to take part in the board's activities and those of its associates.[11][12]

He retired from active cricket and is now invested in running multiple franchises of laundry and dry-cleaning brand UClean in Delhi NCR and Punjab.

See also

References
  1. "Ajay Sharma (Cricket Archive)". Retrieved 9 June 2006.
  2. First-class Matches - Highest Career Batting Average Cricinfo
  3. Ranji Trophy - Most Hundreds Cricket Archive
  4. Ajay Sharma in elite company Cricinfo
  5. Breakup of Ajay Sharma's first-class statistics Cricinfo
  6. 4th Test: India v West Indies at Chennai, 11-15 January 1988 Cricinfo
  7. Ajay Sharma - ODI innings-by-innings batting list Statsguru, Cricinfo
  8. India v Australia at Bangalore, 27 October 1989 Cricinfo
  9. "Ajay Sharma".
  10. "Padiham withdraw Sharma contract".
  11. "Ajay Sharma cleared in match-fixing case".
  12. "Remembering KP Bhaskar".
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