Ajay Kumar Sharma () (born 3 April 1964) is a former Indian cricketer.
Sharma was a prolific run-maker in
first-class cricket
First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...
, mainly for
Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...
, scoring over 10,000 runs, at an average of 67.46. He was a part of the Indian squad which won the
1988 Asia Cup.
Domestic career
In the
Ranji Trophy, Sharma scored a record 31 centuries and his batting average of approximately 80 in the competition is second only to Vijay Merchant. In the 1996–97 season, he became only the third player to score over 1,000 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 strong domestic record, Sharma only played one
Test match for
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
- against the
West Indies
The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...
in January 1988. He played 31
One Day International
One Day International (ODI) is a format of cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of fifty overs, with the game lasting up to 7 hours. The World Cup, generally held every four yea ...
s 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. 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.
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.
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.
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
*
List of cricketers banned for match fixing
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sharma, Ajay
1964 births
Living people
Cricketers from Delhi
India One Day International cricketers
India Test cricketers
Indian cricketers
20th-century Indian sportsmen
Delhi cricketers
North Zone cricketers
Himachal Pradesh cricketers
Cricketers banned for corruption
Sportspeople banned for life