Debashish Mohanty

There was a period when Mohanty formed a strong new ball partnership with Venkatesh Prasad. Beginning at 1999 Cricket World Cup, he was the second highest Indian wicket taker despite playing four games fewer 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 of the ICC ODI World Rankings. However, with the return of Ajit Agarkar, his opportunities dwindled and he played only another seven games. Mohanty, along with Harvinder Singh was instrumental in winning one of the Sahara Cup series against Pakistan in Toronto in the 1990s.

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.

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 analysis, and so achieved the rare feat of taking all ten wickets in an innings.[1]

Sachin Tendulkar recently shared an interesting story on Mohanty.Saeed Anwar had once confessed to Sachin that Mohanty was unplayable. Mohanty had taken Saeed Anwar's wicket in 3 matches in Sahara Cup tournament 1997. Mohanty also represented Odisha and East Zone in the Ranji Trophy and Duleep Trophy respectively.

In 2006, he joined Colwyn Bay Cricket Club in Wales as the club professional. He is employed by NALCO, Bhubaneswar. He has been appointed the coach for Odisha Ranji team since 2011 and after 7 years he had been replaced by another former Indian cricketer Shiv Sundar Das as the Coach in 2017.[2] He replaced the former coach Michael Bevan. He coached the East Zone team and East Zone created history by winning their first Duleep Trophy.