Yashpal Sharma: Guts, glory and less feted innings of ‘83 WC that BBC didn’t cover

Yashpal was like that bridge between India being a horrible ODI outfit to their transformation into world champions

“I shared a strange relationship with Malcolm Marshall. The moment I would come in, he would at least hit me twice on the chest,” the late Yashpal Sharma would narrate with a straight face while sipping tea at the Feroz Shah Kotla ground. On Tuesday, as Indian cricket lost one of its gutsiest soldiers to a massive cardiac arrest, one couldn’t help but remember what a nice easy-going person Yashpal was, someone who was great at having a laugh or two even if it was at his own expense. Yashpal was like that bridge between India being a horrible ODI outfit (he was part of the 1979 World Cup where they even lost to Sri Lanka) to their transformation into world champions and the ODI revolution that happened after that in the country.