Sunil Joshi

Sunil Joshi is a former Indian bowling all-rounder. He was born on 6 June 1970 in Gadag, Karnataka. He was a left-arm orthodox spinner and left handed batsman.

Background

Sunil travelled from Gadag to Hubli everyday for practice which is around 65 kms apart. He played for Karnataka state in the Ranji Trophy. The season of 1995/96 turned out to be a breakthrough season for him as he scored 500 runs and took 50 wickets and was selected in the national side.

He has 615 First-Class wickets and 5129 First-Class runs to his name.

Debut

Joshi made his international debut in a Test match against England at Edgbaston, Birmingham on 6 June 1996. India batted first and were all out for 214. England scored 313 and secured a 99 run lead. India faltered in the 2nd innings as well and were all out for 219. England chased down the target of 121 runs with 8 wickets in hand. Joshi scored 12 runs in each innings and did not bowl.

He made his ODI debut against Zimbabwe at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo on 1 September 1996. Zimbabwe batted first and scored 226. Joshi returned with figures of 10-1-37-2. India chased down the target in the 44th over with 7 wickets in hand and Joshi didn’t get a chance to bat.

Club career

Joshi played for the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in IPL 2008. He debuted against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on 18 April 2008. That was the first ever match of the IPL. KKR scored a mammoth 222/3 in their 20 overs with Brendon McCullum scoring 158. Sunil Joshi bowled 3 overs for 26 runs. RCB were bowled out for a meagre 82 in just 15.1 overs. Joshi scored just 3.

He went on to play 3 more matches in the same season. He scored 6 runs and took just 1 wicket in his IPL career that lasted only 4 matches.

Records

In 15 tests, Joshi scored 352 runs at an average of 20.71 and picked up 41 wickets at 35.85. In 69 ODIs, he scored 584 runs at an average of 17.18 and took 69 wickets at 36.36. He has one five-wicket haul in Tests as well as ODIs.

His best bowling figures in ODIs cam against South Africa in LG Cup in 1999. His bowling figures were 10-6-6-5. This performance was later included in the Wisden 100 as the seventh best bowling performance in ODIs.

Retirement

Sunil Joshi announced his retirement from First-Class cricket on 21 June 2012.

After retirement, Joshi became the coach of Hyderabad cricket team and then replaced B Bedi as J&K coach. In 2015, he was appointed as the spin-bowling coach of the Oman national team. He coached the Assam Ranji Trophy team in 2016. In 2017, he moved to Bangladesh as their spin consultant.