(Good time to have this as New Zealand, Australia, India and England don't play till Boxing Day at the earliest - I don't really care too much about South Africa until we play them...)
2011 was quite a bumper year for international cricket.
It started with England clinching a crushing 3-1 series win over Australia in Australia. The New Year started with Ricky Ponting ruled out due to a broken finger.
I'm going to hazard and guess that Ricky Ponting will probably not see out the year after two dismal showings against the apparently rubbish New Zealand cricket team.
Sorry Punter, you've had a great innings but I think your time is up. The same could be said about much of this Australian side who have definitely seen better times. The fall of the once mighty Australian cricket empire is complete with the Ashes firmly in England's grasp and the Aussies stuck in the middle of ICC rankings with a team fully in transition. Michael Clarke will have to do an Allan Border job to get Australia back into the top 3 of the world rankings. While the bowlers like Pat Cummins & James Pattinson have shown promise, the order of the batsmen remains uncertain.
But back to England who had a stellar year in the 5 day version of the game. In fact, they finished as the number 1 test nation in the world after a thumping series win over India in the middle of the year.
Their one day form is still iffy though. They had a very mixed World Cup, losing to Ireland and Bangladesh but still made the quarterfinals where they lost to one of the hosts, Sri Lanka.
Mind you, it's still questionable if England really care about the 50-over version of the game especially when its leading offspinner, Graeme Swann, comes up with comments doubting its existence in the future - fair enough really.
Whatever happens to the 50-over version of the game, its 2011 World Cup was probably one of the best held in a very long time. It was timely given the debacles and controversy at the last 3 World Cups.
The 2011 Cricket World Cup held in India, Bangladesh & Sri Lanka was a successful tournament that was well supported by the locals and featured plenty of exciting matches and moments. It was also the most open in a while with the holders, Australia and one of the favourites, South Africa knocked out early. It paved the way for India to host Sri Lanka in an exciting final in Mumbai which they won; enabling Sachin Tendulkar to finally get his hands on a World Cup winner's medal.
So what about New Zealand in all of this? Well to be fair, it has been a mostly mediocre year. Prior to the World Cup, New Zealand lost their home series to Pakistan but got it together for the big time and surprised favourites, South Africa in the quarterfinals, to make their 6th semifinal in World Cup history. They lost to Sri Lanka which was not really a surprise. That they made it this far was a surprise.
After a long hiatus, they returned to action in Zimbabwe. To be fair to the Zimbabweans, they were actually more competitive than people predicted and gave the Blackcaps a great fight in the one day series and one-off test.
They got smashed in the first test against Australia in Brisbane; this after much hype by the media that the Blackcaps would end their 26 year hoodoo against the weakest Australian side in memory.
As it was, the media were a game early and that hoodoo would be ended on one of the greenest tops ever seen in Hobart.
It wasn't one of the most impressive wins by the Blackcaps by any means even though Doug Bracewell took 9 wickets in the test including 6 for 40 in the 2nd. In fact, the batting remains as woeful as ever - but with John Wright at the helm it should improve surely. Nevertheless a win in Australia is a big achievement no matter how weak Australia might be now, especially given our last win against Australia was in 1993, our last over there in 1985 when Richard Hadlee was still ruling the roost.
So a brilliant way to cap off 2011 for New Zealand and one that brings new hope for next year with Zimbabwe and South Africa due on our shores.
But of course there is Twenty20 action and the new Big Bash League in Australia and HRV Cup kick off soon. You have to wonder if the fuss around Twenty20 has started to pipe down a bit now with the Champions League and IPL not really getting the attention they had earlier. Nevertheless, Twenty20 has proven to be cricket's golden goose and key to unlocking the world market and with the Twenty20 World Cup next year, Twenty20 cricket has only just started to matter to the game as a whole.
So teams of the year?
Twenty20: Tillakaratne Dilshan, Brendon McCullum (wk), Mahela Jayawardene, Eoin Morgan, Shahid Afridi (captain), Suresh Raina, Ajantha Mendis, Sajeed Ajmal, Shaun Tait, Lasith Malinga
One day: Tillakaratne Dilshan, Shahid Afridi, Kumar Sangakarra (captain), Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Jonathan Trott, Mahendra Dhoni (wk), Daniel Vettori, Tim Southee, Dale Steyn, Lasith Malinga
Test: Alistair Cook, Andrew Strauss (captain), Kumar Sangakarra, Sachin Tendulkar, Jacques Kallis, Jonathan Trott, Matt Prior (wk), Stuart Broad, Graeme Swann, James Anderson, Dale Steyn
No comments:
Post a Comment