Cricket Special Report: India’s dominance in 2010 – Part 1-15/12/10

Cricket Special Report: India’s dominance in 2010 – Part 1


Posted By: Michelle Beckett 15/12/10

As the sun sets each day, the year 2010 comes one step closer to the end. With the Ashes and the pre-World Cup 2011 buzz taking over in the last few weeks of the year, a look at the year gone-by shows that it was clearly dominated by India.

Sports in general reached great milestones for the country. India organised the Commonwealth Games this year amidst controversies and shameful preparations of the players’ village. Yet the Indian athletes raked in glory as they defeated England in the gold medals tally. Indian cricket’s god Sachin Tendulkar went on to set records this year hitting his first One Day double century against South Africa. He also took the International Cricket Council Cricketer of The Year 2010 Award as well as the People’s Choice Award.

The celebrations and media sensations followed across the border with news of the marriage between India’s tennis super-star Sania Mirza and Pakistani former captain Shoaib Malik. The year 2010 also saw the wedding nuptials between India’s captain MS Dhoni and Sakshi Singh Rawat.

However, the year had its lows as well owing to the Indian Premier League mess and of course the highlight of the year, the spot-fixing allegations. Lalit Modi, an occasional social acquaintance in high profile clubs of London, was suspended by the Board of Control for Cricket in India due to his shady business dealings. The mess continued with Modi defending his case through his official Twitter account.

Whereas, the IPL mess is still dominating the many sensational news headlines, the men from India’s international cricket squads have been dominating the pitch throughout the year.

India’s year started a bit rough as they slumped to a defeat in the final of the Tri-nation Tournament against Sri Lanka even though the Lankans had six inexperienced players in their squad. India was lashed out of failing to bat on a batsman-friendly pitch. Even though India had played relatively well with the top order playing in their form, it was Suresh Raina’s efforts that were significant on a personal front.

India’s dominance slowly kicked off when India won the One Day series against South Africa 2-1. South Africa gave a hard time to the Indian bowlers with the three match series proving to be a nail-biter. South Africa has been India’s old nemesis and winning an ODI series meant that India might have a good year which would project their chances for the World Cup.

Interestingly their wins in the year 2010 has been on the home grounds in front of their millions of crazy cricket lovers. They have had a busy year, ironically their last series being against South Africa and this time it will not be on their home grounds. There have been calls against such a busy calendar for the country which might mean that they would have less time for the World Cup preparations.

However, this busy schedule has helped the country climb up the ranks of ICC ODI Championship and particularly Test Championship. India is currently the World’s second ranked ODI Champions, just seven points behind number one ranked Australia. The catch over here is that India has played 39 matches as opposed to Australia’s 36 matches.

India has won 3 series and lost 2, both being the Tri-angular series. The second Tri-nation series included Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe along with India where India lost to underdogs Zimbabwe. A stronger side of Zimbabwe marked their return to high-profile international cricket against a second string side of India.

However, the selectors had more diamonds in hand and as the year progressed, India’s future looked bright as the young guns took charge in the most important ODIs.

Throughout the year, the likes of Virat Kohli-whose form hit home when he successfully charged his team to a series-win against Australia. Kohli, who has fast become the performer when his side is under pressure, was aptly supported by another exciting player Suresh Raina who has been performing in the IPL and Test cricket and his confident approach on the crease would definitely work during the World Cup campaign.