Yashpal Sharma (Cricketer)

Some Lesser Known Facts About Yashpal Sharma

• Yashpal Sharma was an Indian International Cricketer who was a part of the India team that participated and won the 1983 Cricket World Cup. Yashpal was a middle-order batsman who also bowled a right-arm medium-fast bowling style.

• Yashpal was born in Ludhiana, Punjab and during his school days, he began playing for the cricket team of Punjab schools. He grabbed the attention of the coaches when he scored 260 runs against Jammu & Kashmir schools in 1972. Two years after this game, Yashpal was playing for the Punjab state team and he was a part of the North Zone team of the country that won a Vizzy Trophy.

  

• Yashpal made his first-class cricket debut with the Duleep Trophy where he played for the North Zone team and scored 173 runs. The match was against the South Zone team which had some remarkable players like Chandrasekhar, Erapalli Prasanna, and Venkataraghavan.

• Yashpal made his international debut after his impressive score of 99 runs in the Irani Trophy. He made his ODI debut while he was on a tour of Pakistan with the Indian cricket team in 1978. He went to England with the team in 1979, where he played for the three-days test series and made his test debut. He scored an impressive 884 runs with an average score of 58 runs during the tour matches.

• Yashpal scored his first test hundred against Australia in the Kanpur test match in 1980. He missed the opportunity for another century during the fifth test match of the series when he appealed against light and had to settle for an unbeaten 85 runs off 117 balls in the next test.

  

• In a match with the Victoria team from Australia, Yashpal made his highest first-class score of 201 runs. After this tour, Sharma was dropped out, and in 1982, he became a part of the team again in a series against England. He batted throughout the second day with Gundappa Viswanath and their partnership helped in taking the score up by 316 runs.

  

• In 1983, Yashpal got injured after a ball bowled by Malcolm Marshall struck him on the head and he was asked to retire early. After his average performances, he was picked up for the Indian team for the 1983 World Cup. He scored 89 runs and paved the path to the first defeat of the West Indies team.

  

• Yashpal Sharma was the second high scorer for India in the 1983 World Cup with 240 runs in eight matches.

• Yashpal Sharma performed poorly against Pakistan during their tour to India. He then played a three-day match for North Zone where he hit four sixes against Viv Richards. However, two more failures in the international matches ended his career, and in 1988, Sharma left the Punjab cricket team and joined the team of Haryana.

• In 1993, Yashpal retired from cricket and became an umpire for some time. In 2003, he was appointed as the selector for India’s national cricket team. During a controversial spat between the former Indian team captain Sourav Ganguly and team coach Greg Chappel, Yashpal supported Sourav, and in 2005, he was removed from the selection committee.

• In 2005, India was preparing for their home series against Sri Lanka when Yashpal was removed from the selection committee. In response to this, he accused Greg Chappel of questioning Yashpal Sharma’s credibility towards the team. In response to this, Chappel said-

He (Yashpal) was frustrated that he lost a job which he obviously wanted to keep. I had no part in him losing his job, but he had to take it out on someone.”

• In 2008, Yashpal was re-elected as the selector for the national cricket team and he served till 2011. During his tenure, the Indian national cricket team won the 2011 Cricket World Cup. Later, Yashpal became a coach for the Uttar Pradesh Ranji Team.

  

• In August 2019, the Delhi and Districts Cricket Association (DDCA) appointed the members of the 1983 World Cup-winning team India, Sunil Valson, and Yashpal Sharma in the new Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC). CAC was the committee responsible for appointing the staff members of the state teams.

• After getting the news of his unfortunate demise, many renowned players like Sachin Tendulkar, Ravi Shastri, Virender Sehwag, etc. came forward to express their sorrow and offer their condolences to the family through Twitter.

• Yashpal Sharma was a fitness enthusiast, and he was a teetotaller. He was a vegetarian and he preferred light and soothing meals.

• Yashpal Sharma made an appearance in an episode of ‘The Kapil Sharma Show,’ where they invited several players of the 1983 World Cup Indian cricket team. During this episode, Sandeep Patil revealed that Yashpal Sharma was a huge fan of Dilip Kumar and Manoj Kumar‘s starrer, Kranti. Yashpal explained the reason and said that he loved Dilip Kumar and he watched the movie for him. The actor had a huge impact on Yashpal’s life and it helped him in becoming a cricketer and play international cricket.

  

• Bollywood movie directors Kabir Khan and Anurag Kashyap planned to make a movie titled ’83’ on the event of the 1983 World Cup. In the movie, the role of Yashpal Sharma is played by the actor Jatin Sarna, and some other actors in the movie are Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Hardy Sandhu, Ammy Virk, etc. Jatin Sarna made a tweet on his Twitter account in response to the news of Yashpal’s death.