On this day, Indian cricket witnessed a spectacular spell of enthralling spin bowling by Sunil Joshi. Such was his performance at Nairobi that it was the fourth most economical spell bowled in an One Day International. On September 26, 1999, India took on South Africa in the second match in the LG Cup, a quadrangular tournament with Zimbabwe and Kenya being the other two teams.
South Africa won the toss and elected to bat first against India, who were being led by Ajay Jadeja. Openers Boeta Dippenaar and Herschelle Gibbs came out to bat against a bowling attack being led by Venkatesh Prasad. However, both of them returned to the pavilion with 32 runs on the board as Joshi began his spectacular spell.
He bowled Dippenaar for 17 and got the wicket of Gibbs with Rahul Dravid taking a fine catch at slip. Joshi then took the wicket Hansie Cronje, who was dismissed for 2 and followed it up by bagging Jonty Rhodes and Shaun Pollock for 1 and 0 respectively. Joshi ended with mind-boggling figures of 10-6-6-5. Joshi was assisted by Nikhil Chopra who took three wickets for 26 runs. India won the match by 8 wickets and 164 balls to spare with Joshi getting the Man of the Match award.
Joshi played 15 Test matches for India and took 41 wickets and played 69 ODIs in which he took 69 wickets. He will be remembered for his spectacular spell that is edged in the memory of every Indian cricket fan.
