New Year Wishes

Wish all of you a happy New Year – hope you have the best of luck in the coming new year of the decade.

Happy Reading and I promise to bring you much more interesting opinions of mine in the coming year.

Compilation of my posts in the year 2009 is as follows:

India's tour of NewZealand -
The Indian team won their ODI series against the Black Caps and came within striking
distance of the ODI Pinnacle. The Indians flexed
their muscles in the ODI series and won it comfortably, looking forward to the test series. The first test was also won  in a similar manner by the Indians and there were expectations that the remaining tests would be won with such ease. It was not to be, alas.

IPL2 - The IPL was shifted to South Africa thanks to the elections in India. Though it was a challenege, it opened up new avenues for BCCI. I decided to come up with a new way to track run-chases in T20 matches and use it for reference in the IPL2 tournament.The IPL2 was good preparation for the forthcoming ICC T20 World Cup and witnessed quite a few innovations from the teams. After 37 matches, the IPL2 was placed in an interesting situation. One saw the commercialization of the IPL concept to the maximum by Lalit Modi, who wanted to maximize it further. The D-day arrived at IPL2 with teams who were placed at the bottom in the previous edition. The correct team won the tournament which came to an end, bringing a lull to the viewers around the world. There was one constant winner between the 2 editions of IPL other than Lalit Modi, of course.

T20 World Cup - The World Cup post IPL2 seemed to be a logical extension of the T20 matches and the Indianteam was expected to be the team to beat. The World Cup had a good start to the tournament with unexpected winners. After the league matches, the Super 8s was the next stage. India lost their first match at Super8 and eventually tumbled out.

Champions Trophy - The ICC Champions Trophy was held at South Africa. The stage was interesting
at the Group Phase with India expected to meet Pakistan. The Indians lost the match and lost out on qualification from the Group Phase. The Indian's performance was in stark contrast to their otherwise good results in the year.

Champions League - Champions League (First Edition) finally started in India with a bang. JP Duminy
showed how a perfectT20 chase could be orchestrated. Somerset then held their nerves and won a topsy-turvy match. Delhi Daredevils crushed the team from Sri Lanka in their contest. The Eliminator
was finally seen at the Champions League - an exciting way to identify a winner in a tied cricket match. Deccan Chargers was shut out of the tournament by T&T thanks to the dare-devilry batting.

India-Australia ODI Series - Amidst news of the ODI format losing ground against the T20, the Indians took on the visiting Australians. This series revived the ODI format with some interesting matches between the two sides. MS Dhoni and Yuvraj helped the Indians lead the series 2-1 but the Indians could not win at Hyderabad even though the maestro Tendulkar played a heroic innings. The Aussies then won the remaining match and thereby the series.

India-Srilanka Series - The Indian team announced for the SriLanka series had few surprises. The First Test at Motera saw Dravid and Dhoni revive India after the Lankans held an upper hand. Sri Lanka was solid in their reply and raced ahead on the 3rd day. The Indians started their fight-back for survival on the fourth day, bringing a tame end to the match with all things even. The Second test at Kanpur started
well from an Indian perspective and remained that way on Day 2 as well. The Indians gained further lead on the third day making it a formality on the fourth day. The third test at Mumbai started with honours even. Until Sehwag started his innings. The Indians pressed further on the 3rd day making it difficult for the Lankans to avoid a defeat on the 4th day. They did avoid defeat but not on the final day.

The focus moved from Test Matches to the T20 vesion. Sri Lanka thrashed the Indians at Nagpur while Yuvraj, on his birthday, evened the series at Mohali.

The ODI series was anticipated after the shard T20 series. The series started with a high-scoring win for India at Rajkot making the Cuttack ODI interesting.Sri Lanka chased down a huge total to even the series. The Indians pulled ahead at Cuttack to lead the series, going to Kolkata. Would it be another loss for India to even the series was the question? Gambhir and Kohli won the match and series for India, making the last match redundant.

Sachin Tendulkar completed 20 years of International Cricket. This was one of the occasions to celebrate in the year 2009. Among the batsmen who have scored more than 9000 runs, SRT was at
the peak. His progress in test matches was remarkable.

Miscellaneous Posts - The Indian contracts for the year 2009-10 was released with few surprises. Sehwag almost scored his third 300, showcasing his evolution as a Great batsman. Sehwag, Dilshan and similarly Gayle have shown a new facet of test openers in modern cricket. His exploits made India reach the ICC No.1 ranking for test matches, making others wonder at the achievement. India's focus on test matches needed refinement, as it seemed that the focus was on ODIs and T20s. 3 batsmen (Dilshan, Gambhir and MS Dhoni) made a difference to their respective team's fortunes in the India-SriLanka series. Meanwhile, Australia played the series against West Indies at home - there were no surprises who won.

As the decade came to an end, it was time to relook at the top Indian victories in test matches and ODIs.