Ajay Sharma
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Ajay Kumar Sharma | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 3 April 1964 Delhi, India | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowling | Slow left-arm | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Role | Batsman | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Relations | Manan 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 ODI | 16 November 1998 v West Indies | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Domestic team information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1984–2000 | Delhi | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2000–2001 | Himachal Pradesh | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Career statistics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source: CricketArchive, 14 December 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Ajay Kumar Sharma (ⓘ) (born 3 April 1964, in Delhi) is a former Indian cricketer.
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
- ^ "Ajay Sharma (Cricket Archive)". Retrieved 9 June 2006.
- ^ First-class Matches - Highest Career Batting Average Cricinfo
- ^ Ranji Trophy - Most Hundreds Cricket Archive
- ^ Ajay Sharma in elite company Cricinfo
- ^ Breakup of Ajay Sharma's first-class statistics Cricinfo
- ^ 4th Test: India v West Indies at Chennai, 11-15 January 1988 Cricinfo
- ^ Ajay Sharma - ODI innings-by-innings batting list Statsguru, Cricinfo
- ^ India v Australia at Bangalore, 27 October 1989 Cricinfo
- ^ "Ajay Sharma".
- ^ "Padiham withdraw Sharma contract".
- ^ "Ajay Sharma cleared in match-fixing case".
- ^ "Remembering KP Bhaskar".