When Inderbir Singh ‘Ish’ Sodhi joined Notts Outlaws as one of two overseas players permitted in the domestic T20 tournament in 2017, he was already one of the most coveted white-ball bowlers in world cricket. By the time he returned for his second season at Trent Bridge, he was the number one rated T20 bowler with impressive figures wherever he played.
He was also a medal winner – having been part of the triumphant Outlaws squad that added the 2017 NatWest T20 Blast trophy to the 50-over cup won a few weeks earlier. If he could not help Notts to retain the T20 cup in 2018, Sodhi played his part in the team reaching the quarter-finals. In his two seasons of T20 cricket with the Outlaws, he took 34 wickets at 26.58, with a best of 4-17, a strike rate of 17.82 and an economy rate of 8.95. His batting was rather less memorable – 47 runs at 5.87 and a best of 15no.
Ish Sodhi was born in Ludhiana, Punjab, India on 31 October 1992, but his family moved to South Island, New Zealand, when has was four years old; he learned his cricket in New Zealand and in 2012-13 made his debut in the Plunket Shield domestic tournament. Within a year he had been picked for the Kiwis' test squad, making his first international appearance against Bangladesh; in 2014 he made his T20I debut v West Indies and his ODI debut the following year, against Zimbabwe.
To date, he has played 19 test matches, 50 ODIs and 102 T20Is; Sodhi was a member of the New Zealand squad for both the 2019 Cricket World Cup in England and the 2023 tournament in India but played only one match in either competition.
November 2023