2018 was an eventful year for cricket. A look back will show just why. It helped that the cricket played on the field certainly kept things interesting and some events on and off the field got a lot of attention.
The Ball Tampering Saga
The year will forever be remembered for the ball tampering episode and its fall out. This happened during Australia’s tour of South Africa. It was during the 3rd test of a very hotly contested series up to that point when the incident occurred. Australia were bowling and South Africa were sitting pretty and batting well.One of the Aussie players, Cameron Bancroft was seeing rubbing the ball with a yellow tape ( sand paper as it turned out). The umpires accosted him and he looked flustered. It was at the end of the day’s play that the Australian captain , Steve Smith, revealed that there was a pre-planned attempt to alter the condition of the ball. There was outrage all over and particularly in Australia and the backlash of adverse public sentiment led to the captain Smith, Vice captain Warner ( whose idea it was, as it turned out, to tamper the ball) being banned from International and first class cricket for a year by the Australian authorities. Bancroft received a 9-month ban. That is not where it ended, the coach stepped down, the CEO of Cricket Australia resigned as well. Without its key players, the Australian team struggled. Some felt the bans were too harsh, others felt they were just.
Mind your manners
The year also saw a lot of scrutiny of on field behavior and chatter. Sledging and whether its right or wrong was discussed at length in the media and by former players. With people able to hear whats being said on the field thanks to the stump mics ( you can see many videos on the internet if you just type the words ‘stump mic chatter’) There were heated exchanges between the Aussies and the South Africans prior to the ball tampering in the series, with comments being passed about family members etc. and that was derided all around. It has certainly led to players being a lot more conscious of the fact that they are always in the public eye. Whether it will make the field a quieter place, no one knows.
Test Cricket – you beauty
Cricket aficionados, pundits and ex- players fear for Test cricket in today’s T20 dominated world. The big fear is not that it will lead people to get bored of watching test cricket, the biggest fear is that the money players make around the world playing franchise T20 cricket will not make them value test cricket enough to want to play it, they will merely be satisfied putting in 4 hours of labour thrice a week for a couple of months and earn enough to see them through the year.But 2018 saw the return of test cricket to the forefront with a bang.48 tests played, with 43 producing a result, more than any other year. The 5 draws were the lowest since 1970. It also produced fewer centuries and cheaper wickets than it had in a long time. The batting averages also were the lowest since the year 2000. All seemed to suggest that the bowlers did a good job, thus took more wickets and dismissed sides, thus leading to more results.
It also helped that a very competent Indian side, which has ruthlessly dominated in home conditions was to undertake three big tours abroad (of South Africa, England and Australia). There was huge excitement among the public that this Indian side could finally win in these countries. So half the cricket following world (read Indian fans) keenly followed their team’s fortunes during the tours and kept the interest in test cricket going. While India lost in South Africa and England – the cricket played during these series was enthralling with not a single draw and many close matches which could have gone India’s way and would have given an entirely different reading to the result. After losing the series in South Africa, India won the final test and went on to dominate the rest of the tour. In England, a 3-1 loss to India could easily have been a scorline the other way round if things had played out slightly differently. . In Australia too, India played very well and earned themselves a 2-1 lead as 2018 came to an end (they later went on to win that series).
Towards the latter part of the year England prevailed over Sri Lanka in Sri lanka, blanking them 3-0 and New Zealand defeated Pakistan in a very closely contested away series 2-1 . Zimbabwe also drew a test series in Bangladesh 1-1 . These ‘away’ performances broke the pattern of teams dominating at home and losing abroad as has been the norm in recent years in test cricket and certainly made for exciting viewing.
This has certainly whet the appetite of cricket fans, where interest levels for test cricket are high. ( tellus, how many of you are looking forward to India’s next test series already? Or the Ashes in mid English summer to see how an Aussie side with Smith and Warner in it will fare?)
Indian Fast Bowlers – the best of the lot
Some time ago, Kapil Dev said “There are no fast bowlers in India” – he surely wont say the same now. Indian pacers picked 179 wickets in the year, more than the fast bowlers of any other country. Jasprit Bumrah, Ishant Sharma, Md. Shami, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar – what a stock with many like Md. Siraj and Khaleel Ahmed in the wings.
Bumrah( in his first year of test cricket), Shami and Sharma ended up taking the most wickets by a trio of fast bowlers for any team, ever. They took 131 wickets between them and beat a 34 year old record set by the legendary West Indian Trio of Garner, Holding and Marshall who claimed 130. Now that is a Stat to be proud of, particularly if you are an Indian cricket fan, used to seeing spin dominated test performances.
The future crop
The beginning of the year also saw India perform well and win in the U 19 world cup in New Zealand but what got everybody really excited was two young fast bowlers hitting over 145ks consistently. Watch out for Shivam Mavi and Kamlesh Nagarkoti. The Team was captained by Prithvi Shaw and the player of the series award went to another impressive young batsman Shubman Gill – watch out for him too.
The Prithvi Shaw (Show) – coming soon?
We saw a glimpse of this young man (18 years old) during the U19 world cup, he looked the part. But, his Debut 100 scored against the West Indies blew us away, the youngest player to score a century on debut. He looked so composed and as though he belonged in the big leagues. An Injury before the first test match against Australia prevented him from playing there, but still, there is still a lot more to where that came from.
Welcome to the big leagues Afghanistan and Ireland
2018 saw two new members added to the test playing nations club and never was it more well deserved. Both Ireland and Afghanistan played their maiden test matches. Ireland in May against Pakistan in Ireland and Afghansitan played against India at Bangalore, India.
Kevin O brien from Ireland made a particularly impressive showing and scored a century as well and the Irish did manage to make the Pakistani team sweat a bit, eventually losing by 5 wickets.
Afghanistan however, were steamrolled by an innings and 262 runs by a ruthless Indian side, their batters clearly showing that they have a lot of work to do to develop the test match temperament.
On evidence of their performances it was felt that the call up to test cricket came perhaps a bit late for an ageing Irish side, where bulk of the players have been playing well consistently since 2007 ( remember their shock win over Pakistan in the 2007 world cup and win over England in the next edition of the world cup?). They could have been given the opportunity sooner.
CSK – A loud roar on return
2018 saw CSK and Rajasthan Royals (RR) make their return to the IPL after a two year Hiatus. It was also the year of a mega auction and most teams tried to do an overhaul of their squads. CSK, largely managed to get some of the old firm back. They were happy to have Jadeja, Raina, Bravo, Faf and crucially the ‘thaliava’ Dhoni back in the squad. Along with this they had handy additions like Bhajji, Rayudu, Watson and Ngidi too. However, the average age of the team was one of the oldest in the IPL and it was to be seen how the team would cope with the fitness demands that a 6 week strenuous tournament takes. Cope they did, and how! Ambati Rayaudu turned out to be the standout performer and right from the get go, this team was at the top of the pile. Dhoni played with a gay abandon that one wishes he sometimes did so when playing for India. Rayudu earned a recall to the Indian team as a result of his performances and CSK reached the final. In the final, a Shane Watson masterclass blew the Sunrisers away to hand CSK their third IPL crown and just present for a patient cricket mad Chennai city.
The 2019 WC qualifiers
The world cup in 2019 will only have 10 teams participating. The host England along with the top seven ranked teams as of Sept 30, 2017 got a direct entry into the tournament, which meant that for the two remaining spots, a qualifier was to be played.
This qualifying tournament was hosted in Zimbabwe who along with West Indies, Afghanistan and Ireland headlined the event. There were 10 teams in all, split into 2 groups of 5, from where the top 3 in each group progressed to the Super sixes from where only the 2 finalists of the event would qualify for the World cup. Afghanistan got off to a shocker of a start losing to Zimbabwe and Scotland in the group stages to be almost out of the reckoning and just scraped through to the super sixes.
The Super sixes turn out to be a dramatic affair where needing to win their final game, Zimbabwe unfortunately lost to ‘lowly’ UAE ( who finished bottom of the super sixes table) to hand a chance to Afghanistan to qualify for the final if they beat Ireland, which they duly did. So, from being on the brink of elimination, Afghanistan had now qualified for the WC and went on to win the final as well, beating a West Indies team ( who were the other qualifier) comprising of the likes of Gayle, Brathwaite and Evin Lewis comprehensively in the final. Thus Afghanistan and West Indies joined the other 8 team and will play the world cup. It was heart break for Zimbabwe who will missed out on playing a world cup for the first time since 1983.
The 100 for the future
In April 2018, the English Cricket Board announced the creation of 100 ball cricket. It will be a franchise-basedtournament with 8 cities having a team each. Nothing new about franchise based cricket except that this will NOT be a 20 over a side game – instead will feature 15- 6 ball overs and one over consisting of 10 deliveries, thus the name the 100. It will be a shortened version of T20 cricket. It is scheduled to start in 2020. Currently the response to the Idea has been mixed. While a number of former players have backed the Idea, including current England captain Joe Root, a few others have felt no need to add another format of the game, including India captain Virat Kohli.
England was also the birth place of T20 cricket ( and cricket as a whole) so let us see how the format pans out. A 100 delivery world cup in the future? Anyhow, watch out for more development here.
So that, in a snapshot was 2018 for you. The women had a great time of it too in 2018 so we dedicated a separate article to it. 2019 being a world cup year, should be exciting enough!
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