IND vs AUS 2017: MoM Award Could be Shared, feels Chetan Sharma
May 27, 2023 at 12:55 PM
Kuldeep Yadav picked up his maiden hat-trick in the second ODI between India and Australia at the Eden Gardens. Yadav became the third Indian bowler to take an ODI hat-trick, the other two were Chetan Sharma and Kapil Dev.
His three victims were Matthew Wade, Ashton Agar and Pat Cummins. The Indian team had some noticeable performers in the second ODI, but Virat Kohli was adjudged the Man of the Match, courtesy a well made 92 which guided India to a defendable total of 252 runs.
India’s another hat-trick taker Chetan Sharma believes the man of the match award for the second ODI should have been shared by both Virat Kohli and Kuldeep Yadav. When Sharma took the hat-trick, he also shared the man of the match award with Sunil Gavaskar who scored a hundred in that match. Sharma picked up the hattrick against New Zealand, and his victims were Ken Rutherford (26), Ian Smith (0) and Ewen Chatfield (0). All the three batsmen were clean bowled on consecutive deliveries.
Sharma believes that Kohli scores run on frequent occasions, but a hat-trick is rare, and the award should’ve been shared. He said,
“I got the man-of-the-match award along with Sunil Gavaskar, who scored his only ODI hundred in the same match (India v New Zealand in the 1987 World Cup at Nagpur). I was happy to share the man-of-the-match award with the legend. Here too, there should have been a joint man-of-the-match award – Kuldeep and Kohli, Kohli is scoring runs often, but a hat-trick comes once in a while. The last hat-trick by an Indian in ODI cricket was Kapil Dev’s which he bagged in 1991.”
He also remembered how Gavaskar helped him keep his calm on the hat-trick ball and asked him to bowl to his basics and the result would come. He said,
“Gavaskar advised me to keep my cool. The first wicket I got (Rutherford) was through an off-cutter. The wicket was very slow, yet Chatfield was playing with a helmet on. Watching Chatfield, Kapil Dev told me, ‘Aare ye to dar se kap raha hai’ (he is scared) and I bowled him through his legs.”
He also feels that Kuldeep is a match winner for the team, he added, “Kuldeep is a match-winner. After bowling his first spell, he came back to bag a hat-trick. He did a creditable job as bowlers were finding it difficult to grip the ball. Yet, he forced the batsmen to commit errors,”