Cricket 2015, What was?

I saw the top cricketing moments of 2015 on hotstar.com and on bcci.tv . They did not look satisfactory to me, majorly because they were limited by the amount of footage that Star and the BCCI must have access to. So here is my take on cricket that was in 2015. 

(In no particular order)

The Year of the Tiger

Dumping England out of the World Cup and ending as Quarter Finalists. They followed it up with a 3-0 drubbing of Pakistan in the ODI Series, a 2-1 win over sub-continent heavyweights India and the main  highlight came against South Africa, a 2-1 ODI Series and drawing both their test matches. They clean-sweeped the ODI Series against Zimbabwe to make it four in a row for 2015. They won 13 out of the 18 ODIs they played in the year. A win % of 72.22, only Australia (78.94) have better.

A New Hero?

Among great batting performances from the likes of Mustafizur Rahman became the first Bangladeshi Player to make it to the ICC ODI Team of the Year alongside names like Trent Boult and Mitchell Starc. He picked up 11 wickets against India in his first two matches and followed it up with a displicned performance against the Proteas. After 9 matches, his ODI tally reads at 26 wickets at an impressive average of 12.34.

Bangladesh ODI Bowling, 2015

India's new Test Dawn

2015 Tests Breakdown

2015 saw a heavy weight change at top for the Indian test team, as MS Dhoni stepped down and Virat Kohli took up the reigns. A tense draw at Sydney followed by a rain-hit draw in Bangladesh did not give us enough to judge Kohli yet. When India lost the first test in Sri Lanka after a batting collapse chasing a total of 176. Questions were raised whether this fearless approach by Kohli is justified or not. What followed was some good counter-attacking cricket backed by good bowling and dependable batting, for once. First test series victory in Sri Lanka for 22 years (2-1) and an end to South Africa's nine-year away run (3-0). India won all 5 matches by bowling out the opponents in the fourth innings. Two main talking points that came out of these victories were Kohli's captaincy and Ashwin's growing dominance.

Recent Indian Captains at 10 Test Matches

Kohli is second only to Dhoni, who won 7 and lost none of his first 10 matches as Test Captain. Kohli lost his first match against Australia, when he was substituting for Dhoni. Kohli has shown that he can lead the side and he refuses to give up. India got 130/130 wickets in the 7 matches against Lankans and Africans. 52 of these wickets are credited to Ashwin, who has shown that he is clearly the best bowler for the sub-continent. After 32 Test matches, he is level with Sehwag (103 Matches) and Tendulkar (200 Matches) for most Man of the Series awards in Test for India. Kohli has not been shy of giving the new ball to Ashwin, who has not disappointed. Ashwin has 152 wickets in Asia in 23 Matches, the next best after the same number of matches is Waqar Younis at 130 wickets.  

Test Wickets, 2015

Wahab's Moment

Bullying an Australian done right

In a World Cup which saw record number of 300+ scores and couple of double hundreds, it was a bowler who provided the most memorable passage of play. Shane Watson taunted Wahab Riaz while he was batting and asked him "Are you holding a bat?"  When he got the ball in the hands, he let it do the talking. He got rid of Warner and Clarke early and when Watson came out to bat, he made sure he knew what Wahab can do with a ball, he did not let Watson at ease for over four overs. He bowled over 150kph. At the end of it was a tale full of Bouncers, Mouthfulls and a rattled Watson. Even thought Pakistan lost the game and Watson got some runs at the end, this fired up spell will go done as one of the most combative moments of ODI cricket. A spell that deserves to be retold.

http://www.icc-cricket.com/cricket-world-cup/videos/media/id/4968/wahab-riaz-spell-to-shane-watson-cwc-quarter-final

The Pink Tales

Lunch replaced by Tea, Tea replaced by Dinner and the iconic Red replaced by Pink. In one of the major cricketing experiments of recent days. The first day-night Test went underway in Adelaide. Even though the test was wrapped up in three days, a nervy finished with Australians successfully chasing 187 after losing 7 wickets. Earlier, Hazlewood made sure that the Kiwis were bundled out for 208. The bigger picture though, the experiment can be dubbed as a rather successful ones. The crowds did improve as the opening day saw over 47,000 people. In last few tests at the Oval, some of the attendance figures were: 38,615 (England in 2010); 21,480 (India in 2011); 33,943 (England in 2013); 25,619 (India in 2014)

A Pink Affair

The Broad Face

With the series fairly poised at 2-1, the 4th Test at Nottingham could either seal it for England or set the series for a thrilling finale at The Oval. The answer to that was clear after just 94 mins and 18.3 overs of play. Australia stumbled to a total of 60, with the extras top scoring at 14, followed by Johnson at 13 and Clarke at 10, all other scores were single digits. Reason behind this wreckage was Stuart Broad. 8 for 15 in 9,3 overs meant that the Ashes were all but secured by England. 

Too good to be true?

Two sides of AbD

How do you judge a batsman? By the number of runs he scores? How quickly he scores them? How much he scares the opposition? Or how adaptable he can be? 

AB de Villiers seems to tick all the boxes. Two of his innings stood out in particular for the year.

The 2nd ODI against West Indies at Jo'burg on 18th January where he reached the century in 31 balls bettering Corey Anderson's 36 ball effort. He went on to make 149 off 59 balls, a strike rate of 338 in an innings which saw 16 sixes and 9 fours. The final scorecard read 149 (59m 44b 9x4 16x6) SR: 338.63

Arms of Carnage

The 4th Test against India at Kotla in December where India had already won the series. India set a target of 481 runs with six full sessions to play. Through the series, outh Africa was guilty of throwin away the wickets and easily going down against India's spin attack. But this last innings was batting at the best in an effort of epic proportions. AbD scored his first runs on his 33rd ball. His first boundary came off the 89th ball. He was 12 off 100 balls. When Ashwin got him out, the scorecard read 43 (354m 297b 6x4 0x6) SR: 14.47

Arms of Resilience?

The 90's Show

The All Stars Series to promote cricket in USA provided a window into the past as people went nostalgic over the stars of yesteryears. Sachin lead his Blasters which had Ganguly, Sehwag, Jayawardene, Lara, McGrath, Murali, Pollock, Akhtar among others. Warne had Hayden, Ponting, Sanga, Kallis, Akram, among others. Even though Warne got the better of Sachin's team. The whole tournament had a feel-good factor about it. Sehwag humming a famous Hindi song while casually hitting Allan Donald for a six should sum up the tournament for you. 

Old Times!