First of all, here's wishing all my readers a Very Happy New Year, although the last few days of 2004 were extremely devastating for humanity as a whole.
I will try to recollect a few moments from what has been a mixed year for Indian cricket - doing fairly well in the Test matches but failing miserably in the ODIs.
India started with a bang in Sydney, spoiling Steve Waugh's farewell party. Sachin, Laxman and Kumble starred while Irfan Pathan produced a peach of a delivery to nail Gilchrist and announce himself on the World scene. Rahul Dravid capped a quite unbelievable series in Australia with a second innings 91 not out and the Man of The Series Award. The old fox Steve Waugh however did not let India run away with all the prizes as he fought out a draw with a typically-Waugh innings of 80-odd. Of course Australia will forever remain indebted to Parthiv Patel and Steve Bucknor for their respective contributions in ensuring a drawn test and series.
Laxman started the ODI series in great form - and the victory in Brisbane was a significant one - but that was to prove a false dawn. India went downhill from there and although Yuvraj struck a century of absolute majesty in Sydney India's form slid from bad to worse to lose the VB series pretty badly.
Then came the historic tour of Pakistan. In an up-and-down series completely dominated by batsmen, India played well to eke out victories in both Tests and ODIs. The standout performances were Sehwag's 309 at Multan, Dravid's 270 at Rawalpinidi and the brouhaha over the extremely sensible Multan declaration with Sachin on 194* in Multan. That declaration set the tone for India's series victory, really. It showed how determined India were to win and how ruthless they could be in order to achieve it. Although they suffered a hiccup in Lahore they dominated all the way in Rawalpindi for a historic first-ever series win in Pakistan and the first one abroad in more than 10 years.
Then came a three month break. As the season turned from summer to the monsoons, dark clouds gathered on what looked until then, clear skies on the horizons of Indian cricket. More on this in Part 2 ...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
yaa...one of the memorable seasons in the recent past...they were pretty much on track to snatch the numero uno position from the aussies...but alas that was not to happen...they are back to square one in the later half of the year...what an anticlimax!
Post a Comment