Monday Post

As  the year 2019 is coming to end, so I thought of   reviewing the year in certain fields of action, and today I am writing about the Indian cricket and its five best moments.

The Indian Cricket team had a huge successful year in all the formats in the year 2019. They played eight Tests in the year, Virat Kohli & Co remained unbeaten and scored resounding victories in seven out of eight Tests with one ending in a draw, keeping their number one ranking intact. In ODIs, India emerged victorious in 19 out of 28 matches, losing seven, and the remaining two going as no-results. In T20, Virat Kohli’s men pocketed nine wins out of 16 games and suffered defeats in the remaining seven. The most sad moment was when India lost to New Zealand in rain curtailed semi final of World Cup.

Here are the 5 greatest moments of The Indian cricket team in 2019.

5 Rohit Sharma’s 5 Centuries in World Cup 2019 :

Before the world Cup his performance in ODIs was a mixed one, specially in ODI series with Australia. However he found the form in the first match against South Africa and scored 122. He then scored 140 against Pakistan. And as the tournament progressed he scored three consecutive centuries against England(102), Bangladesh (104) and Sri Lanka (103). He finished the tournament with 648 runs. In the process he became first batsman to score 5 centuries in a World Cup tournament.

Rohit ended the year as  the highest run scorer in ODIs with 1490 runs, and presently  he is ranked number 2 in ICC ODI rankings.

4 Deepak Chahar’s 6 Wickets  vs Bangladesh :

Bangladesh visited India during Nov 2019 to play 3 ODIs and 2 Tests.

Contrary to the expectations, a depleted Bangladesh side proved as heavyweights in the series. They won the first T20 and India bounced back to win the second T20I. In the third game, the tourists were cruising in their pursuit of 175.

In the 13th over with Bangladesh placed at 110-2, Deepak Chahar came back to bounce out Mohammad Mithun to break the stand of 98. Post that wicket; the visitors completely lost their way, and eventually, Chahar finished with match figures of 3.2-0-7-6. With those numbers, the 27-year old created the record for best bowling figures in T20 internationals. The home side won the game by 30 runs and the series by 2-1.

 

3 First Bilateral Series win In Australia :

 

India visited Australia in early part of 2019, and they had upper hand in all the formats. The Australian team were in all kind of uncertainties with ban on Steve smith and David Warner. They shared the T20 trophy and India won the Test series.

 

The three-match ODI series began with Australia sidelining India to take the lead in Sydney. In Adelaide in the second ODI, the men in blue chased 299 to level the series. In the series decider, India struggled in their chase of 231 in the first ten overs. Nevertheless, MS Dhoni and Kedar Jadhav saw the team over the finish line.

With the victory, Virat Kohli’s men not only won the ODI series but also clinched their maiden bilateral series in Australia. India also became the first nation not to lose a single leg on their tour down under which will go down one of the greatest moments of Indian Cricket Team in 2019.

2 First Pink Ball Test Match :

Australia and New Zealand drew the first-ever pink-ball or a day-night Test in 2015 in Test cricket history. Since then, almost all the Test-playing nations played at least one such game. However, the Indian team was reluctant to participate in the same due to several factors. That all changed when Sourav Ganguly became the President of BCCI in October 2019 and convinced Virat Kohli, who agreed for their first day and night red-ball fixture at the international level.

India agreed to host Bangladesh in November for the first day and night Test at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. As soon as the official word spread out, Kolkata swooned itself in pink to celebrate the first-ever pink-ball Test in India. It augured perfectly for India as they won the match by an innings and 46 runs. The triumph also meant that India blanked Bangladesh to win the series by 2-0 which is one of the greatest moments of the Indian cricket team in 2019.

 

 

1 India’s First Ever Test Series Win In Australia :

 

The Indian team had won a Test series in all the Test-playing nations except for Australia and South Africa. They lost in South Africa at the start of 2018; however, arrived down under with their best chance of a series win in 72 years. Australia were like wounded tiger on this occasion, mainly because of their lack of confidence that came on the back of their three players getting involved in the ball-tampering scandal in March 2018.

While Australian attack performed quite well, but the lack of runs from their batsmen largely dented their chances time and again. The pace -bowling unit of India was too much for the inexperienced batting side to handle, and they eventually suffered the first-ever Test loss to India at home by 2-1.

India won the first Test in Adelaide and the third Test in Melbourne. Australia scored a victory in the second Test in Perth while the fourth Test in Sydney resulted in a draw, mainly due to rains. Cheteshwar Pujara was named as the man of the series for scoring 521 runs in five Tests. The series triumph also made India the only sub-continent nation to win a Test series in Australia. This was undeniably the most glorious moment of the Indian cricket team in 2019.

So these in my opinion were 5 best moments for Indian cricket in 2019.

Please do comment/give your views/ give feed back on this blog.

 

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

30^th Dec 2019.