Chetan Chauhan, former India opener, passed away due to complications from COVID-19 at the age of 73 on Sunday. The cricketer-turned-administrator was a minister in the current UP government and his demise was seen as a great loss to not only cricket but to humanity well.

Remembering the gutsy Chauhan who once hit three back-to-back centuries with a broken jaw in the Ranji Trophy, former Haryana off-spinner Sarkar Talwar recalled how he saved Navjot Singh Sidhu and Rajinder Ghai on a train from a mob after the assassination of former PM Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984.

The incident took place on 'Jhelum Express' when the players of North Zone and Central Zone were returning from Pune after playing their Duleep Trophy semifinal.

"The match ended on October 30 and the next morning when we were getting ready for the airport we came to know that the PM had been assassinated. So our team manager (Prem Bhatia) got us first-class tickets on Jhelum Express. It was a nightmare journey and it took us four days to reach Delhi,” Talwar recalled.

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"At one of the stations, around 40-50 people entered the compartment looking for people from the Sikh community. We had three Sikh players -Navjot Singh Sidhu, Rajinder Ghai, and Yograj Singh - in our team. I vividly remember, Chetan Chauhan and Yashpal Sharma had a heated argument with the mob and once they realized that they were Indian cricketers, the mob got off the compartment," recollected Talwar.

Sidhu and Ghai were hidden under the seats behind the kit bags and Yograj Singh recalls asking Sidhu to even cut his hair.

"It was very scary, they were burning trains and after their face-off with Chetan Chauhan and Yashpal, I asked Sidhu that let me cut your hair. He refused and said, 'Paaji I have been born as a Sardar and will die like one'," recalls Yograj Singh, father of cricketer Yuvraj Singh.

"I remember one of the people from the mob shouted at Chetan paaji and said, 'We are here to kill the Sardars, nothing will happen to you.' Chetan paaji yelled back, 'They are my brothers and you can't touch them.' The way Chetan Chauhan dealt with the situation was quite commendable," he added.

Gursharan Singh also recollected the incident given that he was in another compartment.

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"If not for Chetan Chauhan, I don't think that any of us would have survived. I and Rajinder Hans (former left-arm spinner of Uttar Pradesh) were on a different bogie and when we came to know about the incident it left us very scared. But Chetan Chauhan came to us and reassured us that we would be safe and the mob would not trouble us,” Singh said.

Rajinder Ghai, who played six ODIs for India recollected the incident and called it a narrow escape for him and Navjot Singh Sidhu.

"I don't know how we survived. It was horrifying. Chetan Chauhan gave us the second life. We got out of the train at Okhla station because Yashpal Sharma's house was close by. We stayed there for a week before Sidhu's father sent help to rescue us,” Ghai said from California.

(Times of India inputs)