Charu Sharma had a rollercoaster two days on February 12 and 13 when he was asked to stop his lunch and fill for the Hugh Edmeades who had collapsed in the auction room at around three hours after the IPL 2022 mega-auction had started.
Charu Sharma was like Chris Gayle when in 2011, the big West Indian was called upon as a replacement player by RCB and took the tournament by storm. Gayle at the point was having late night drinks in a bar when RCB owner Vijay Mallya rung him up and asked him to be on a flight replacing the injured Dirk Nannes in the squad.
Here, Charu Sharma, was having lunch with his guests – his wife’s sister and her family were visiting from Mumbai – at his Bangalore house which was, coincidentally a ten-minute distance from the ITC Gardenia Hotel, where the mega-auction was taking place, and was paused when Edmeades had fallen ill due to “postural hypotension”.
It was the IPL governing council chairman, Brijesh Patel, who rang Charu and told him to “Just get into a suit and come”.
Charu Sharma, though, is not uncommon or unfamiliar among Indian audiences and to those in the auction room. He is a highly renowned, and successful, commentator, television presenter having hosted multiple sports – importantly, for his occasion, he has experience of doing an auction: Charu regularly does painting auctions in Bangalore.
He was also familiar with several people in the auction room – and has worked alongside some of them over the past couple of decades.
Just like on the field, there was some luck also involved which went BCCI’s way. Normally, on Saturday morning and afternoon, Charu plays Golf. However, he had suffered a shoulder injury four months ago in Kathmandu, he revealed to ESPNcricinfo – that kept him at home, otherwise, he would have been at the Golf course with his phone away.’
As soon as he arrived at the hotel of the mega-auction, he was soon tested for covid-19 – although he had taken an RT-PCR test that week when he entered Bangalore from Pune after doing the ATP Tour’s Tata Open and was also triple vaccinated.
Once cleared and informed about the auction procedures, Charu, with his immense grace, thanked Edmeades for his work so far, which elicited applauds in the auction room for the ill Edmeades.
Charu Sharma seamlessly took over the role of the auctioneer. He was brilliant in his speech and was clear about when to hit the hammer for selling a player, although by the end one or two franchise representatives were seen a bit unhappy with Charu, that he could have closed some bids quicker instead of giving the chance to others to continue bidding.
Charu Sharma has earned praises from everyone – the fans, the BCCI officials and the franchises – for his excellent work at such short notice.
