Birthday Special: Chetan Sharma – India’s first-ever World Cup hat-trick hero

At the tender age of 16, Chetan Sharma started playing first-class cricket for Haryana. He made his international debut aged only 17 and a year later, played his first Test. He made it memorable by bowling Mohsin Khan with his fifth ball, thereby becoming only the third Indian to take a wicket in his first over in Test cricket. Sharma first grabbed attention when he took 14 wickets in three Tests in Sri Lanka in 1985, including his first five-wicket haul.

With some scintillating performances, Sharma proved experts wrong, many of who believed that he would not last long because of his slim physique. In the 1985 World Series Cup in Australia, India needed a win against New Zealand to reach the final and they chased it thanks to a match-winning knock of 38* from Sharma’s bat.

A world record

Notably, he scripted performances in England in 1986 when he took 16 wickets in two Tests, including the first ten-wicket haul by an Indian bowler in that country. On October 31, 1987, he became the first-ever bowler to take a World Cup hat-trick. Incidentally, this was also the first instance of an Indian taking a hat-trick regardless of the format.

The fact that Sharma achieved this feat on the biggest stage made it all the more special for India. He reached the landmark in India’s final group stage game against New Zealand at Nagpur. In the 42nd over, he clean bowled Ken Rutherford, Ian Smith, and Ewen Chatfield on three successive deliveries.

Sharma played his last Test in the West Indies in 1989 but continued to represent India in ODIs until 1994-95. He went on to play 23 Tests, taking 61 wickets at an average of 35.46. In his ODI career, he featured in 65 matches and took 67 wickets at an average of 34.87. Sharma ended his first-class career with a massive 433 wickets from 121 games and scored 3714 runs at 35.03, hitting 3 centuries and 21 fifties in a span of 15 years. Post-retirement, the veteran took up television commentary and fought the 2009 Lok Sabha Elections.

In late 2020, the former cricketer took over as the chairman of the All-India Senior Men’s Selection Committee along with Abey Kuruvilla and Debasis Mohanty as part of the selection committee.