New chief selector Sunil Joshi had once played alongside Virat Kohli in IPL

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has finally zeroed in on the country’s chief selector and it is former bowler all-rounder Sunil Joshi. The former left-arm cricketer was not among the favourites to bag the top job but is now one of the main faces of Indian cricket.

Joshi will be joined in the committee by former India speedster Harvinder Singh while three other members are Devang Gandhi, Jatin Paranjpe and Sarandeep Singh who are yet to complete their tenures. Joshi succeeded MSK Prasad while Harvinder came in the place of Gagan Khoda.

Joshi played cricket between 1992-93 and 2009 and appeared in 15 Tests and 69 ODIs between 1996 and 2001 (made over 900 runs and claimed 100-plus scalps). He had made his Test debut in the same tour of England in 1996 where current BCCI chief Sourav Ganguly also made his historic beginning.

Joshi’s final Test came in Nagpur in 2001 and it was under Ganguly’s captaincy. However, Joshi has not just shared the dressing room with the BCCI president in the past but also with Virat Kohli, the current national captain.

Sunil Joshi played four games for RCB in 2008 edition

In the inaugural edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2008, the former Karnataka cricketer was picked alongside Kohli for the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), the franchise that Kohli captains now. It was a time when the IPL franchises were more about featuring local players.

Joshi was aged 37 then while Kohli was a teenager who had just led India to an Under-19 world title victory. The left-arm spinner had a nondescript IPL however as he played only four matches in the tournament in which he scored six runs and got a solitary wicket. Overall, Joshi played 15 T20 games in which he made 78 runs at a strike-rate of below 91 and took 13 wickets at an average of 26.

Before taking over as the country’s chief selector, Joshi has had successful stints as a coach, both in domestic and international cricket. He coached Hyderabad even before calling retirement and took over the reins of Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh as well. Internationally, Joshi has coached Bangladesh, Oman and the United States. In 2017, he started as Bangladesh’s spin-bowling consultant and continued till the 2019 World Cup in England.