Cricket in 2011: A year for the historians

In several ways, 2011 was the year when the best of world cricket and its worst made its presence felt, often simultaneously. Ten years from now, or maybe even twenty five, when the historians review the era gone by, I reckon 2011 would be earmarked as the watershed year. So much happened this year!

It was a World Cup year and I believe that’s what would be a central piece for any year-end review. But there were events that happened on the field and off it, both cricketing and several not so, that threatened to steal the World Cup’s thunder. Before the marquee event of the calendar began, the world had all but put an R.I.P. sign on the freshly prepared grave of One Day Cricket. The doomsayers predicted another tepid event and a swift subjugation of optimists who still believed the ‘old new game’ (read one dayers) still had life in it.

Winners of 2011 World Cup

How wrong they were! We had a pulsating World Cup with some of the most memorable acts performed by new and old guard. Tendulkar finally had his mighty and longing hands around the trophy. He was carried around the loving Mumbai stadium by men like Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina who were learning C for Cat and not Cricket when the great man lost his first shot at world glory back in 1992 Australia. It was the most poignant sight, especially if you were an Indian spectator. I bet there weren’t too many dry eyes in the country then. Englishmen provided the greatest entertainment in the event – losing to Ireland but beating South Africa and World Cup success owes to their completely mid-cap campaign.

The best innings of the World Cup, maybe even the year, wasn’t essayed by the usual suspects, but by an unknown Irishman, Kevin O’Brien, whose countrymen are routinely puzzled by the fact that cricket is a game of two versus eleven. It was an innings of such audacity, such bravado, such Quixotic temerity, that the viewers first cheered him on, then started guffawing and ultimately were awestruck by it. Virender Sehwag was always expected to score a double hundred if you drop a few catches off him. But O’Brien wasn’t supposed to score a hundred. Not in a World Cup. Not chasing a three hundred fifty plus score. Not with a strike rate of two hundred. Not, certainly, against the old enemy England. He did. And created a masterpiece for posterity.

Kevin O’Brien

Much has been written about India’s victory and how some old and terrible ghosts (2003 and 2007) were laid to rest. So I won’t repeat it here. Although the romantic in me wants to reminisce about the sweet sweet victory India achieved over their old nemesis, Australia. Some good things come to a tragic end and Australia’s undefeated march in World Cup ended with Rick Ponting trying to bury his head in the ground (literally, there is a picture) and Yuvraj Singh, the much maligned colossus, letting out a primal victory cry.

Now, the worst thing. The IPL started five days after Indians celebrated a night they would never forget. Two days after the epochal victory, we saw M S Dhoni in the canary yellow of Chennai Super Kings, answering questions about how he was going to ensure a repeat of last year’s IPL success. Who the hell cared! It was like Genghis Khan talking about painting the walls of his palace after he had conquered the world. It was bizarre and gut wrenchingly unfair on the Indian team, especially its great captain, to not soak in the moment. How many world cups would you be winning in your lifetime? Ask Jacques Kallis about it.

IPL 2011 – A drab affair

The fact that IPL was a failure, both as a cricketing tournament (which its key stakeholders never thought it ever was) and as a consumer product was the best justice that was ever done. The cricket, and I guess we can safely call it that because it has bowlers, batters and fielders, was poor quality. The viewers were perplexed to see their favorite players suddenly wearing different colors and representing different teams. They were totally sated after watching the tri-color being hoisted at the pinnacle of glory in the World Cup. Would you eat a hastily prepared meal in your local mess right after devouring the greatest dishes ever prepared by the best chefs? You wouldn’t. No sane person would. But the people controlling cricket in India thought we, the viewers, ought to be taken for granted. Very much like the traders and bankers who thought real estate prices never came down before the sub-prime crisis came back to bite them where it hurt the most. The result? For the first time in the history, we had more policemen than spectators at Eden Gardens. It was heart breaking. Unbelievable. Akin to people in Chennai refusing to watch a Rajnikanth movie. It can’t happen. Shouldn’t happen. Please, the powers in Indian cricket, the BCCI, please – don’t let it happen again. EVER.

This article wouldn’t be complete without talking about the most enigmatic force in the cricket world – Pakistan Team. Since 2006, when Inzamam soul destroyingly forfeited the Oval test, they were one big train wreck of a team. Nobody wants to tour their country. Nobody trusts their players. Nobody wants them to make money in the IPL. But they keep winning. This year, they have defeated teams that were thought to be far stronger than them. Their opponents were certainly in better frame of mind. Pakistan have proved that the age-old adage of ‘talent can overcome all’, still has great relevance even today. This is the age of ‘High Performance Coaches’ and ‘Specialized Drills’. But nothing beats the good old ability to swing at great pace. This Pakistan team seems to have a great deal of resilience in them and are being led by a calm and insightful leader in Misbah. Younis Khan and Shahid Afridi have made up their mind that they would talk and do sensible things after Ijaz Butt was stopped from any further damage. The historians, ten or twenty five years hence, might look back at the sentencing of the three cheap merchants of their honor, Amer, Asif and Salman Butt as the cleansing that was necessary and course altering. That’s what makes this year curiously quirky. Good and bad things happening in parallel, maybe even feeding off each other!

Caught fixing

Two proud test cricket powerhouses, India and Australia were bullied into submission by the common enemy, England. Indians and Australians had made a habit of pummeling the Englishmen in the past, and this year they gave it back with interest and penalties. Several reputations were scarred (Ponting became the first Aussie captain with three Ashes defeats, Dhoni faced the ignominy of a humiliating whitewash) and many weaknesses were exposed (India’s inability to bowl without Zaheer and Australia’s lack of depth in batting). Zimbabwe played a test match after almost seven years, and incredibly, almost won it! New Zealand beat Australia in Australia with a team in which no one was called Richard Hadlee. Sri Lankans realized life without Murali was so impossibly difficult to live. The bizarre deterioration of Mahela Jayawardene was saddening to watch. He, along with VVS Laxman is the guardian of artistry on cricket field. And sadly, both are fading away. This was the year when Dale Steyn told the world that there is him at the top, a large vacuum follows him, and the rest take the remaining positions. Off course, with due respects to a born again Jimmy Anderson and always threatening if fit, Zaheer Khan. The spinners fared poorly. Harbhajan Singh couldn’t sustain the great form he showed in South Africa. Graeme Swann failed the great Indian ‘Can-you-threaten-them-when-Warne-and-Murali-couldn’t?’ batting test, even when every Indian batsman in England looked as if he had gone into a worm-hole only to come out of other side to realize he had bat in his hands and was supposed to use it. Nathan Lyon has shown immense promise but he too would be facing the same test very soon.

I reckon, the two speeches delivered by Kumar Sangakkara and Rahul Dravid would echo for a very long time. Two well read, thoughtful, insightful and erudite men with immense class created the blueprints for what cricket ought to be in simple yet awe inspiring manner. I wish the ICC was listening to them.

Some random highlights:

Best Team of the year: By far England. Not in One Dayers though. That’s India.

Best Innings of the year: Kevin O’Brien’s hundred in World Cup. Across the formats of the game.

Best Match of the Year: New Zealand vs Zimbabwe test match that Zimbabwe agonizingly lost

Best debutante of the year: Pat Cummins. I reckon he would be the natural heir to Dale Steyn in days to come

Best Batsman of the year: Ian Bell in tests. A B Devilliers in One Dayers

Best Bowler of the year: Dale Steyn, period.

Best quote of the year: “Sachin has carried the nation’s hopes for twenty years on his shoulder. It was time we carried him on ours” – a teary eyed Virat Kohli after winning the Cup that matters.

Best coach of 2011 as per Ganguly: Greg Chapppell, because he is coaching Australians

Best underwhelming quote from Sehwag: ‘I thought I was hitting the ball well.’ This, after he had scored a mere 219 runs in Gwalior.

Best ‘Oh No’ moment: Graeme Swann telling the press he thought Pietersen was a lousy captain

Best ‘You Gotta Be Kidding’ moment: When Md. Asif told the court with a straight face that it was pure coincidence that Mazhar Majeed correctly predicted the no-balls. This, after someone told Asif that it was actually a one in ten million chance for that to happen.

Let’s hope we have many great centuries in 2012. Let’s hope we have devastating five wicket hauls. Let’s hope Pat Cummins, Virat Kohli, David Warner, Umesh Yadav, Darren Bravo and other young turks stake the claim to greatness. Let’s hope Australians send off the titanic Ricky Ponting with grace. Let’s hope we see an exciting spinner dominating the bowling charts. Let’s hope Sachin Tendulkar, Jacques Kallis, Rahul Dravid, Kumar Sangakkara and Mike Hussey still remain integral parts of their teams come 2013.

Lets hope IPL 2012 doesn’t make us lose interest in this great sport.

Lets hope…