Oct 11 2009
The Best of 2007
A is for Ashes, the last edition ending in a 5-0 whitewash for the Australians at the Sydney Cricket Ground early 2007. Ponting captained and batted the Poms out of the series – and won the Man of the Series award, while Stuart Clark ended up being the man of the Match in this one. More importantly, Glen McGrath and Shane Warne bowed out of Test cricket – McGrath had one last dash at the World Cup – and the curtains were drawn on an era. Incidentally, Warne ended with only two wickets in this match, to end his tally with 708 wickets.
B is for Botham, who was awarded the knighthood by the Queen, an honour he richly deserves for his all round capabilities coupled with his charity walks. However, apart from his friendship with Freddie Flintoff, not many English cricketers seemed to have taken a liking for this man – as Duncan Fletcher’s autobiography revealed. Botham seemed to have rubbed the wrong side of many a cricketer, by his “inconsistent observations and highly critical commentary”. One does not know too much about the inconsistencies, but, under prepared he certainly was – sometimes – as can be noted by his commentary stints. “West Indies may bring in Pedro Collins for the next Test match”, he observed on West Indies’ tour to England, only to be politely reminded by Michael Holding that Collins had not been a part of the squad!
C is for Coaches. It certainly was an year of the coaches. Bob Woolmer’s death and the high profile following of the case was obviously the low light, but Duncan Fletcher and Greg Chappell’s resignation after a poor World Cup, snubbings from BCCI to Dav Whatmore, and Graham Ford to BCCI, Kevin Curran’s in-your-face responses and finally the appointment of Gary Kirsten for the Indian job capped a very interesting year. Little wonder that Shane Warne called ex-Aussie coach John Buchanan, a “goose suffering from verbal diarrhoea” post retirement.
D is for Dravid, whose form in 2007 was anything but Dravid like. It began decently with a 29 and 47 against SA, and a half-century and a ton against Bangladesh, but after that it was all downhill. Only two more fifties after that in Tests, and almost nothing going for him in the ODIs, he resigned from his captaincy, due to apparent differences with the chief of selectors, Dilip Vengsarkar. If this was not enough, his form in the ODI series against Australia left a lot to be desired; it led to his ‘resting’ and then getting dropped from the ODI squad. Something was definitely not right with arguably the best Test cricketer of India.
E is for Expired: Bob Woolmer died a day after Pakistan got knocked out of the World Cup in suspicious circumstances, whereas Percy Sonn lost his life after battling a colon complication, while serving as the President of the ICC. Bill Johnston, a part of ‘The Invincibles’ of 1948, also died at a ripe age of 85.
F is for Freddie Flintoff, who seemed to be living in the glory of his performances of the yesteryears. So injuries and fitness concerns saw him play only one Test in the whole year. And although he appeared in twenty odd ODIs, more often than not, he was there for only one of the two departments of the game. If the Fredalo incident was not enough, he even had the audacity to ‘sledge’ Yuvraj, only to learn it the hard way, that when the time is not going your way, you better concentrate on your game, than worry about the rest. Yuvraj hit the next over for 36 runs; Flintoff wished the ground had a hole.
G is for Ganguly’s fairytale comeback. Dumped by the wayside during Greg Chappell’s reign, he first made a comeback despite Chappell’s presence. Then he went on to recapture his lost form after Chappell resigned, and scored his first double hundred in Tests against Pakistan. His Test average was a remarkable 62 runs per innings, where as it read an equally good 44 for the ODIs. Hats off to the comeback story of 2007.
H is for Hershelle Gibbs, who became the first cricketer in the history of the ODIs, to hit all deliveries of an over for a six – in the World Cup – off the bowling of V.D. Bunge, against Netherland. He carried this form to the World Cup semi finals, where he managed to score a 39 against the Aussies, but the rest of the team collapsed, and Aussies reached the finals – for the 4th successive time.
I is for ICL and IPL, the two leagues that got announced in the year 2007. While ICL was the breakaway league, sanctioned by Mr. Subhash Chandra, BCCI decided not to remain behind and went ahead with its plans of IPL – both are based on similar concepts of playing cricket the soccer way. Cities would be represented by not only their own cricketers, but also foreigners, and cricketers like Brian Lara and Glen McGrath were signed up quickly. Come what may, the face of cricket changes drastically after these two tournaments were unveiled, little surprise that India was the front runner again.
J is for Jelly Beans. If the Indians did not know what Jelly Beans were, they surely did now; some sweet candies that inspire fast bowlers like Zaheer Khan to bowl faster and better and win Tests for them. England already knew what they were, but they also realized the hazards of using them for purposes they should not have, i.e. throwing them on incoming batsmen, again, batsmen of the fast bowling variety, like Zaheer Khan who could blow the English heads off, and win matches for their teams.
K is for King Khan, who made his presence felt at every cinema house…and cricket stadiums, much to chagrin of BCCI. Shah rukh felt hurt and insulted, and vowed never to visit any stadium again. Now come on BCCI, you can’t do this to the hearth throb of millions!
L is for the Love that got lost between some of the Australians – read Andrew Symonds – and Indians – read S. Sreesanth, and took the India-Australia rivalry to newer heights. Or depths, whichever way you look you look at it. And if events of the SCG Test are to be looked at, then one can easily point out to the aforesaid mentioned cricketers as the ‘fire starters’!
M is for Mandira Bedi who kept getting into controversies for her sarees. One of them involved the wearing of a saree which had the Indian flag on it, next to the feet. Mandira apologized later, and even if one discounted the controversy, one thing was certain – some of her dresses were as atrocious as they could get. Mandira later shifted from that channel to one of the leading sports channels of India.
N is for New Zealand and their atrocious form in 2007. They played only two tests, and lost both by heavy margins. And if one discounts its matches against Bangladesh and co. they lost more ODIs than they won, but more importantly, in the later half of the year, did not seem like an international team wanting to compete.
O is for On-the-top (of the world), for Muralitharan, who broke Shane Warne’s record of 708 wickets in Test matches, by bowling Colligwood out. The other side of the story was that Ponting publicly made a statement – we won’t allow Murli to get the record in Australia – and sure enough they did not.
P is for Ponting and his men, who managed to win all the Tests matches and lost only 4 of the twenty five odd ODIs he captained in. Small wonder he has been the best ‘on-field’ captain amongst the current lot. For those who feel that his captaincy is as good as the team, take one look at Michael hussey, who took over for three matches in the year, managed to lose all and couldn’t wait to get the responsibility off his shoulders.
Q is for the Quickest bowler in the world, Jhulan Goswami! Yes, she not only was clocked as the quickest, but also won the ICC award for the best bowler in the world. And coming from a small town, made it even more special for the Indian!
S is for South Africa’s great choke story in big tournaments – they were pummeled in the semi finals of the main event – the World Cup – and then crashed out before the knockout stage of the World T20 Cup, although they could have lost their last league match and still qualify for the semi finals. Some things never change.
T is for Twenty20 and the World T20 Cup. 2007 would definitely be remembered as the year when the T20 format of cricket took off with a World T20 Cup that captured people’s imagination like none other. If ever a script was written in heaven, this was it, as Pakistan routed the Kiwis in the first semi finals, while India beat Asutralia in the other. In a final that was beamed across the world, India beat Pakistan in a thriller – little wonder a recent report put the final at number 10th in all time sports TV audiences of 2007.
U is for the Underdogs, Ireland, who ousted Pakistan from the World Cup, Bangladesh who did the same to India and then Zimbabwe who beat Australia in the World T20 Cup. Small matter, the World T20 cup final was also fought between two underdogs, India and Pakistan.
V is for Vengsarkar, the chief of Indian Cricket selectors who saw it all in 2007. Shooting from one’s lip, he asked “where is the talent?” quote got changed to “I am happy the youth’s success at Twenty20″, “Seniors need to pull up their socks” to “There is no pressure on the seniors till they perform” to dropping of Dravid and coming up with a statement “Players are going to be selected on form and fitness.” Sehwag was included in the squad, and the statement that came out was, “Sehwag has been among the runs in recent times”, when the statistics proved quite contradictory. Vengsarkar’s newspaper columns also came under the scanner, which led the BCCI to set a seven point diktat for the National Selectors. The Colonel retaliated like only he knows best, threatening to quit, if he did not get compensated. Things cooled down quite a bit, but one has sure not heard the last on this one.
W is for the World Cup 2007, that grabbed attention for all the wrong reasons – Chris Dehring, Malcolm Speed may beg to differ – but Bob Woolmer’s death under suspicious circumstances, clouds of match fixing over a couple of the matches, an unusually long tournament that tired and bored everyone, steep pricing of match tickets, banning of the musical instruments inside the grounds and India and Pakistan’s 1st round exits from the tournament, meant that World Cup could very well have been termed as the worst ever of the lot so far. The final was marred with controversy as well, when the umpires – all three of them – and the match referee – coolly forgot that it takes only 20 overs for a game to be deemed official. Easily, a tournament to forget in a hurry.
X is for the unknown (from the X of X-rays!), ways of getting out that Misbah-ul-haq found out at various stages in the year, at inopportune times. So, first it was a case of not been able to score a run off two deliveries versus India, to be followed by a shot that could give Mike Gatting’s reverse sweep – of the 1987 World Cup final fame – a run for its money in the finals of world T20 cup. If this was not enough, he went on to jump into his crease to get runout, a yard away – in height – from the crease.
Y is for Yuvraj and his awesome year on field…and off it as well. Even if one discounted the six sixes that he hit off Stuart Broad in one over in the World T20 Cup, his form in the rest of T20s and even the ODIs was too sublime to be ignored – as his average of almost 46 in 2007 showed. His bowling tapered off a little, but he scored a hit off the field as well, with his relationship with Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone, only well chronicled.
Z is for Zimbabwe, whose Test status continued to remain suspended; the political situation did nothing of note to inspire faith in the touring teams and their ODI record, continued from where it had left off in 2006. They managed to win only 2 out of their 15 matches, but their biggest achievement was in the World T20 Cup, when they stunned the Aussies – just like they had 24 years back in the 1983 World Cup. Other than that, West Indies and Bangladesh were the only two nations that lost a match each to Zimbabwe, something that speaks volumes about the two, more than anything else.
