Ajay Sharma

Ajay Kumar Sharma pronunciation (help·info) (born April 3, 1964 in Delhi) is a retired 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. 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.

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. 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.

Despite his domestic scoring record, Sharma only played one Test match for India - against the West Indies in January 1988. 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. 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.

In 2000, aged 36, his career ended when he received a life ban from cricket after he was implicated in a match-fixing scandal.

Sharma's son Manan Sharma is a left-arm spin bowler currently playing for Delhi and is part of India's Under-19 team.