Top ten Karnataka cricketers to have played for India - Part 1

5. Sunil Joshi

Sunil Joshi(R) of India, celebrates taking the wicket of Ashley Giles of England

The man from Gadag is a story of hard work, determination and true grit. It is said that Sunil Joshi used to travel about 60 kilometres by train all the way to Hubli for his cricket practice, and then return back to Gadag in time for school.

Joshi’s bowling action was a thing of beauty and extremely easy on the eye. He played the role of an ideal foil for Anil Kumble in the late 90s, a time when India’s bowling attack was comprised almost entirely of Karnataka cricketers.

Joshi represented India in 15 Test matches and 69 ODIs, and picked up 41 and 69 wickets in the respective formats. Joshi had best Test match bowling figures of 8/169 in two innings against Bangladesh in Dhaka, in a match where the hosts were threatening to stage a scare for India after scoring 400 runs in the first innings.

But Joshi shall always be remembered for a devastating spell he bowled against the South Africans in 1999, at the Gymkhana Club Ground, in Nairobi. He picked up five wickets for only six runs in the ten overs that he bowled, and all his wickets were of top and middle order batsmen. Wisden had rated this bowling performance as the seventh best bowling performance in One day International cricket at that point.

Joshi also has the distinction of picking up a rare double of 50 wickets and 500 runs in one domestic Ranji season. Joshi played over 18 years of Ranji cricket for Karnataka.

All those train rides were surely worth it, for Joshi, Karnataka and India.