The Indian swing king who awed the world with his bowling

Debasis Mohanty is a former Indian cricketer who played two Test matches and 45 One Day Internationals for the country. His international career span was quite small, and it only lasted for five years between 1997 and 2001. Mohanty was a right-arm medium-fast bowler who coupled pace to his naturally lanky frame. He found success in the limited-overs format, averaging under 30 and taking over one wicket per game.

Though his international career was short-lived it was worth cherishing. Starting from the 1999 Cricket World Cup, he was the second highest Indian wicket-taker despite playing four games lesser than the leading Indian wicket-taker – Javagal Srinath. Mohanty played 17 ODIs and picked up 29 wickets at an average in the early 20s and climbed into the top 20 ICC ODI World Rankings.

Mohanty was effective in English conditions and was a last-minute call-up for the 1999 World Cup — where he took his best figures of four for 56 against Kenya. Mohanty, along with Harvinder Singh was instrumental in winning one of the Sahara Cup series against Pakistan in Toronto in the 1990s.

The star pacer's abilities were not used to their full potential. Mohanty was a potential pinch hitter but was never used by the Indian think tank. He was a very capable lower-order batsman who could enthrall the crowd with his lusty blows. There was a brief period in Indian cricket when no. 11 Mohanty along with no 10 Rahul Sanghvi entertained the crowd with monster sixes though in losing causes.

His career best came in Agartala. In the 2000–01 season, Mohanty took ten for 46 playing in a first-class match for East Zone v South Zone at Agartala, his career-best innings, and so achieved the rare feat of taking all ten wickets in an innings.

With experience by his side, Debasis started coaching and the gamble paid off well. He coached the East Zone team, who then created history by winning their first Duleep Trophy. He has been appointed the coach for the Odisha Ranji team in 2011 and after seven years, he was been replaced by another former Indian cricketer Shiv Sundar Das as the coach in 2017.

On 24 December 2020, Mohanty was appointed as the national selector of the Indian cricket team.