Aniruddha Joshi

Aniruddha Joshi is a 33-year-old Bangalore-born batsman, known for his hard-hitting abilities, along with off-break bowling up his sleeves.

The all-rounder made his List A debut for Karnataka on December 10, 2015 in the 2015-16 season of the Vijay Hazare Trophy. However, as he was pushed lower down the order due to the presence of heavyweights in the Karnataka team set up, he could not get much opportunity to showcase his talent. 

He had to wait for two more years to announce his arrival in a grand way. In the 2018 edition of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, Joshi emerged as a clean striker of the ball and smashed a 19-ball 40 against Punjab and an unbeaten 73 runs against Rajasthan in India’s domestic T20 tournament.

His exploits with the bat caught the eye of the Royal Challengers Bangalore franchise and he was bought for Rs 20 lakh by the franchise for the 2018 edition of the Indian Premier League. But, once again, he could not make it into the playing XI for even a single game, and kept warming the bench under the leadership group of Virat Kohli and Daniel Vettori.

His power hitting abilities were not going anywhere although he could not play on the big stage of the IPL. Following the IPL 2018, Joshi was one of the talismans for the Mysuru Warriors and put on a show of phenomenal ball striking in a match winning 58-ball-125 innings against Tuskers and helped his side chase down a mind boggling target of 241 runs in 20 overs.

His stocks as a batsman who can provide late order impetus to batting fetched him another IPL contract from the Rajasthan Royals in IPL 2020, but a debut in the cash-rich league still remains a distant dream for the all-rounder.

(As of March 2021)