He signed up the Women’s Cricket Association of India under the Societies Act in Lucknow in 1973
Mahendra Kumar Sharma, among the leaders of females’s cricket in India, passed away in Pune on Tuesday (November 8). He had actually been ailing for a while and remained in his early 80 s.
Sharma leaves an abundant sporting tradition that he set in stone in 1973, when he signed up the Women’s Cricket Association of India (WCAI) under the Societies Act in Lucknow.
The WCAI would remain in presence for the next 32 years prior to BCCI took control of the running of the ladies’s video game in 2006.
Sharma was a starting secretary of the WCAI for its very first 5 years and supervised of India’s hosting of their first-ever Women’s World Cup in 1978 at a time when the governing body mainly depended on contributions from people and the federal government.
During its presence, the WCAI hosted 2 Women’s World Cups, consisting of an effective 1997 edition where England played Australia in the last in front of almost 80,000 fans at Eden Gardens.
” Mr Sharma set the structure stone for females’s cricket in the nation,” previous India females allrounder Shubhangi Kulkarni informed ESPNcricinfo. “His efforts in establishing the WCAI and getting acknowledgment from the world body – International Women’s Cricket Council (IWCC) – in addition to the Indian federal government was substantial at the time.
” He made sure gamers got the promotion they required at the time. His enthusiasm and vision for females’s cricket at a time when there was no cash was unequaled. It began with him arranging the first-ever females’s nationals in India in 1973 as a three-team occasion. It grew to 6, 8 and 14 groups. To begin with there and after that play an essential function in bringing the World Cup was rather an accomplishment.”
Shashank Kishore is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo