Long before the trophies gathered by our formidable women’s cricket team, there was Mahendra Kumar Sharma. And yet, not many know the name, let alone his hand increating an even playing field for the women in blue.
Sharma was a softball coach and organiser based in Lucknow, a young man known for his pleasant, dynamic personality. This was at the start of the 1970s. “He was also very good-looking — people would often compare him with Shashi Kapoor,” says former cricketer Shubhangi Kulkarni, 66, who worked with Sharma closely for several years. “His Hindi was chaste and fluent, and smile spontaneous. And just like that he would command one’s attention,” adds the all-rounder and Arjuna awardee.
Sharma’s forte was to get things done. Those days, not everyone was welcoming of the idea of women playing cricket professionally. Nor were people willing to put in the money. But Sharma — who was in his mid-20s — made it his mission anyway, often dipping into his personal finances. He passed away in 2022, leaving no more than a few sketchy reports on his efforts.
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All those who knew Sharma say he was a visionary. “He foresaw that women’s cricket would be a big thing in the future,” says Sudha Shah, 67, who was part of India’s first women’s Test match in 1976 against the West Indies.
“He was also a great organiser,” says Shantha Rangaswamy, 72, the first captain of the Indian women’s cricket team. “He would plan and execute even the smallest of events perfectly.”
“He was a bold person; shayad unke haathon se hi women’s cricket ka kalyan hona tha,” says Sunita Sharma, India’s first woman cricket coach and Dronacharya awardee.
“There were many who laughed at him, saying, ‘Women cannot play cricket’ or ‘You’re just running behind skirts’. But he was just so focused,” says Kulkarni.
MK Sharma (extreme left) introduces the INdian team at a camp at WCAI
Those days, not many parents were willing to let their daughters play a “man’s sport” but some were playing serious cricket anyway. There were tournaments in schools and state-level matches too. Not to forget the spirited ones who wielded the willow with their brothers and visiting cousins. There were also various organisers in the states who were batting for the girls.
Kulkarni describes how she became part of the Maharashtra team while still in school. “My mother read a newspaper article that said they were selecting players... The facilities at that time were bare minimum. We would practise on cement wickets, the ground would be uneven, train journeys were in second class and lodging in dormitories,” she says, adding that it was the love of the sport that mattered more than anything. Kulkarni and her three sisters all played hockey or cricket or both.
The potential from various parts of the country was waiting to be consolidated.
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But how and when did a softball coach get it all together? If there was a rarefied moment that drove Sharma’s thoughts of an umbrella organisation to reality, it landed on a railway platform.
“He was travelling with the women’s softball team for an interstate competition. While they waited, the girls played cricket on the platform with their softball and bats. Perhaps that’s when he got the idea of starting a women’s cricket body,” Kulkarni tells The Telegraph. And so Sharma registered the Women’s Cricket Association of India (WCAI), a national governing body, in 1973 in Lucknow. He became its founder-secretary and Hamida Habibullah, who was an MP and educationist, became the president.
Here’s a story from the pre-WCAI days when Sharma organised a match at a college ground in Lucknow. The hands-on organiser that he was, he went around on a rickshaw, holding a mike and announcing — “Kanyaon ki cricket hogi, zaroor aaiye!”
What had happened was this. Someone was tasked with publicity but it wasn’t happening with the same energy that Sharma wanted, explains Kulkarni. “So he just took the mike and went himself, the loudspeaker booming in alleys and gallis of Lucknow.” And indeed a curious crowd of about 200 had reached the grounds to watch the girls play.
Immediately after the birth of the WCAI, Sharma widened the field by securing the International Women’s Cricket Council’s recognition. And then, the WCAI started preparing the ground to invite foreign teams. After coordinating with different boards, Sharma invited an Under-25 team from Australia in 1975.
“But before the Indian players could play competitive cricket with an established foreign team, they needed formal coaching. Sharma organised a skills camp at the National Institute of Sports in Patiala. Lala Amarnath was given the responsibility of conducting the camp,” says Suprita Das, sports journalist and author of Free Hit: The Story of Women’s Cricket in India.
“The hard task master that Amarnath was, he had apparently forbidden the girls from taking even a water break during the training sessions! That was his way of building endurance and stamina in those young girls,” adds Das.
Three Test matches were held with the touring Australia team — in Pune, Delhi and Calcutta. Much to the credit of the young India team, they managed to draw all three matches. One of the names that emerged from there was that of Rangaswamy. “She told me that for those matches, she used a broken bat that once belonged to her father,” reveals Das.
Soon after, Sharma invited the New Zealand team for a four-Test series. Rangaswamy hit a century — “the first international century scored by an Indian woman,” as Das puts it. “She won the player of the series award — a red moped.”
In 1976, the WCAI invited West Indies and by this time things were a bit more formalised. India beat West Indies in Patna to register their first Test victory. The enthusiasm grew as did the number of matches — state-level, zonal, national. The WCAI had kick-started a movement. Kulkarni, who was also an administrator at the newly-formed organisation, says it as it happened, “For the first interstate nationals, there were only three teams. In the second edition, there were eight teams participating. And within a year, there were 22 teams.”
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Shah recalls her first glimpse of Sharma as a 15-year-old. “We were playing in Varanasi. I was the captain of the Tamil Nadu team. We were told, ‘You must see Sharma; he is so handsome.’ The whole team was waiting to see him.” What she says next makes plain another reason behind this man’s steady innings. “He was only 10-15 years older than us but in no time became a father-figure to us all,” she says.
Coach Sunita says, “I have been in this field for so many years but never have I heard anything untoward about Sharmaji.”
There is more. Says Shah, “He would reward us if we played well, little things but which meant so much to us then. He’d say, ‘Have a juice on my account’. If Shantha got a few wickets, he’d get her whatever she liked. If the team won, he got us to fly back instead of taking the train, which was of course in unreserved compartments.”
Funding was always a problem; there were never enough sponsors. “But that didn’t come in the way of anything. In fact, he would never even let us know that he was struggling. He’d ensure we had matches to play,” continues Shah. The astute organiser understood that if women’s cricket was to grow, women needed to come into the sport also as coaches.
And that brings us to the story of Sunita, who had just started playing as part of the Delhi team. “I had responsibilities; I had to take care of my mother. Sharmaji understood that I needed support to be able to achieve the potential he saw in me,” says Sunita, who in her long career has mentored many, including Deep Dasgupta and Anju Jain.
“He decided to send me to the Netaji Subhas National Institute of Sports in Patiala for a one-year diploma in coaching. And he paid for every single thing — the course, my lodging, food, etc.” Sharma quietly helped many more girls from not-so-privileged homes — arranging the equipment for them, at times even looking after their dietary requirements, she adds.
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The WCAI decided to hold the 1978 Women’s World Cup in India, which did not play out as expected and was reportedly a logistical and financial struggle. “This was a stumbling block; he could not get the required funds that he had anticipated,” says Rangaswamy. Sharma quit his position at the organisation he founded and raised.
The year 2006 came as a game-changer when the BCCI took over the WCAI. Train journeys became flights and dormitories, hotel rooms.
“Sharma was the happiest when the BCCI took over,” says Kulkarni, who was the WCAI secretary and part of the “transfer”. “The downside was that a lot of us lost our positions. But Sharma knew the future of women’s cricket was going to be better and that is exactly how it turned out to be.”