Yashpal Sharma tried unsuccessfully for years to purchase footage of the innings that defined his career and his life. In the World Cup of 1983 he struck 89 against West Indies, the overwhelming favourites to win the competition for a third successive time. India defeated them that day at Old Trafford and then in the final at Lord’s, igniting the popularity of the one-day game on the cricket-crazy subcontinent.
Sharma’s 89 off 120 balls was the highest score of his one-day international career. In retirement he contacted Doordarshan, the public service broadcaster in Delhi, as well as the BBC, who shared the footage of that encounter. Alas for him, a fire broke out at Doordarshan’s premises and their film was destroyed.
The odds against India winning the World Cup were 66-1. West Indies possessed in Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Malcolm Marshall and Joel Garner one of the finest fast-bowling attacks ever seen: Bishan Bedi, when India captain, once declared in a Test match in Jamaica to prevent physical damage to the lower-order batsmen. Now, however, Sharma and his countrymen appeared teak-tough. Kapil Dev, the India captain for the World Cup, deliberately sought a more aggressive approach from his batsmen. Sunil Gavaskar was one of the finest of all openers but as he had shown in a previous World Cup, fell back on defence. Sharma, as one of a young contingent from northern India, possessed attacking intent as well as the resolve required against extreme pace.
In the semi-final against England, he had made 61 — an innings remembered for his one-legged flicked six off Bob Willis, an astonishing shot apparently honed through playing marbles, and a more agricultural six off Paul Allott, which can still be viewed. India won a low-scoring final, in which Sharma made 11, by 43 runs. The cricketers returned home with the World Cup, their heroics lauded for the rest of their lives.
Yashpal Sharma was born in Ludhiana, an industrial city in the north of India, in 1954 and educated at Government College, Ludhiana. His father, Prem Chand Sharma, was a Brahmin, the highest caste of Hindu. It was of no great cricketing concern that his son was a small boy who grew to only 5ft 4in, for some of the finest Indian batsmen, such as Gavaskar and Gundappa Viswanath, were of the same height or even smaller. Sharma’s ability was evident when he scored 260 for Punjab Schools against Kashmir in 1972. He made his first-class debut for Punjab the following year.
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It took him a little longer than expected to graduate to the highest level. India’s selectors took notice of one particular innings: 173 in 1977 for North Zone against South Zone in the semi-final of the Duleep Trophy. He scored these runs against three of the four outstanding Indian spinners of this period: BS Chandrasekhar, Erapalli Prasanna and Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan (Bedi, who was his captain, being the fourth).
He toured England in 1979 but did not excel in the Test matches despite averaging 58.93 on the tour overall. His maiden Test century came against Australia the following winter and he was to score one further century, against England in 1982, sharing a partnership of 316 with Viswanath. “I remember him as a strokemaker, a happy hooker,” said David Gower, who played in that match at Madras (now Chennai). “Ian Botham took the bait and said he would bounce him out, but it didn’t work.”
A middle-order batsman, Sharma played in 37 Tests, making 1,601 runs at an average of 33.45, and in 42 one-day internationals for India between 1978 and 1985. In his first-class career he scored 8,933 runs, including 21 centuries and 46 half-centuries, with a highest score of 201 not out for India against Victoria on the 1980-81 tour of Australia.
Although Botham was in his pomp early in his career, West Indies’ formidable fast bowlers proved the most trying opponents. “I scored 63 at Sabina Park, Jamaica, in 1983, just before the World Cup, and was last out, I came back to the dressing room, opened my shirt and there were Malcolm ka pyaar ka nishaani [marks incurred from Malcolm Marshall’s short-pitched deliveries]. They were all great bowlers but Malcolm was special. He was scary,” Sharma said.
In retirement he served as a national selector during a controversial period for Indian cricket, with disagreements between Greg Chappell, the Australian batsman who became their coach, and Sourav Ganguly, the captain. Sharma sided with Ganguly and was removed from the selection panel in 2005, but reinstated three years later. He retained his position until 2011.
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His wife, Renu, survives him, with a son, Chirag, who represented Punjab’s under-19s, and two daughters, Puja and Preeti, whose weddings were attended by several former India cricketers, including Dev.
A Bollywood film, 83, was made about India’s World Cup triumph, in which Sharma, who had long sported the kind of moustache seen in westerns, was played by Jatin Sarna. Its release was delayed owing to the pandemic. The part of Marshall, Sharma’s old foe, was played by Marshall’s son, Mali. The expectation was that the populace, knowing as they did that India would not be beaten, would be keen to experience the great success of Sharma and his team-mates once again.
Yashpal Sharma, cricketer, was born on August 11, 1954. He died of a heart attack on July 13, 2021, aged 66