Kanitkar to Lead India A Against Australia A; Joshi Named Bowling Coach

Mumbai: Former India left-arm spinner Sunil Joshi has been named as the bowling coach of the India A team which will take on Australia A in two First-Class matches later this month, followed by three one-dayers, TOI has learnt. The series will start from September 16 and the second match will commence on September 23. Both the games will take place at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow. The two multi-day matches will be followed by three one-day games, scheduled to take place on September 30, October 3 and October 5 in Kanpur.Apart from Joshi, the other new appointment in the India A set-up is that of current Mumbai assistant coach Atul Ranade, who has been named as India A's fielding coach for this tour. The head coach of the side will be former India allrounder Hrishikesh Kanitkar, a post he has regularly been on in the last few years. “Joshi and Ranade have been appointed just for the Australia A series,” a source told this paper.A former Mumbai seamer, Ranade was Vidarbha's assistant coach when they won the 2024-25 Ranji Trophy, and reached the final in the 2023-24 season. The 54-year-old Joshi played 15 Tests and 69 ODIs for India between 1996 and 2002, picking up 110 wickets across both formats with his left-arm spin, besides scoring 936 runs.A stalwart of Indian domestic side Karnataka through the 1990s and 2000s, he played 160 first-class games, 163 List A matches and 15 T20s. He served as a national selector from 2020 to early 2023, and is currently the assistant coach & spin bowling coach of IPL franchise Punjab Kings, where Ricky Ponting is the head coach. He was the head coach of Uttar Pradesh for the past couple of domestic seasons. He has also worked with Bangladesh’s national men’s team as its spin bowling consultant.