Indian Cricket Is Booming

Indian Cricket is booming these days. And handsomely. Their performance in both Tests and ODIs over the last few years has been phenomenal. The number of matches and series we have won under Dravid and Dhoni we have never done it before. So this is the best phase of Indian cricket. In fact the entire era starting from the win against the Aussies in 2001 has been a Golden Era - an era of great success. The amount of success the team has enjoyed over these ten years has been unprecedented. It all started with Ganguly's captaincy in 2000. Ganguly was seen as an inspirational leader because he was strict with the players and an aggressive person on the field. So, he inspired good performances from others. Ganguly focussed on developing some young players by supporting them in their bad phase. He helped Sehwag, Yuvraj, Kaif, Harbhajan and Zaheer by persisting with them in their poor forms and that paid the required dividends. These players delivered the needful when the time came.

Ganguly's captaincy started with an ODI series win against SA at home 3-2. This was a good beginning for a new captain. Then India reached the final of Champions Trophy 2000 and almost won the tie before NZ snatched it away at the last moment. India batted first and piled up 265 in the designated overs. NZ were 130/5 and were therefore about to collapse but complacency on India's part saw them build a big partnership between Chris Cairns & Harris which took them through to the target. A liitle more effort by India in their fielding and bowling could have won the match easily and it would have been a big victory. Before the final India won successive matches against Aus & SA in the knockout stage which was a clear indication of the potential the team had got.

The 2-1 Test series win against Australia was a big morale booster and it lifted the confidence of the players to a great level. Now they started believing that they could win big series and tournaments against good teams regularly and rise to super strength. And it happened too. They equalled a Test series 1-1 with Zim, reached the final of a triangular ODI series involving SL & NZ. In this tournament, Virender Sehwag scored a 61-ball hundred in a match against NZ which was the first time the world saw a glimpse of this butcher. This was also the start of a phase in which India reached the final of a number of ODI tournaments till the World Cup. India drew a Test in SA and managed a 0-1 defeat. Then they won a Test series against Eng at home 1-0 and equalled the following ODI series 3-3. After this India started winning Test matches and tournaments abroad regularly. They beat Zim 2-0 in Test series and 3-2 in ODI series. This 2-0 win was India's first clean sweep of a Test series after a long time. Then they won a Test in WI where they lost the series 1-2. They won the following ODI series 2-1 (5). They won the Natwest Series in Eng chasing 325 in the final. It was a very big win as such a big total had been chased in ODI history after a very long time. It was undoubtedly one of the greatest ODI wins of all times and the stars of the win were Yuvraj and Kaif who scored 69 (63) and 87 in that match. After this win, India leveled a series with Eng 1-1 and with this win Ganguly became the most successful Indian Test captain. After this India lost two ODI series to WI & NZ and a Test series 0-2 to NZ. India's campaign in the WC was magnificent. They reached the final losing only 2 out of their 11 games in total.

The road to the final was glorious as India won convincingly against Pak, Eng and SL. All the wins were comprehensive but these three were the most special. India's loss in the final was disappointing as they could have won had Ganguly not decided to bowl first after winning the toss. Luck favoured India as they won the toss but Ganguly ruined it all. I think teams should always bat first on winning the toss unless the conditions are extremely supportive to bowling. If the conditions are little supportive to bowling then it is always advantageous to bat. After the WC, India's glorious phase began in which they started winning big series and tournaments in foreign countries regularly. They drew a Test series 0-0 versus NZ at home in which Rahul Dravid scored a match saving 222. Laxman was the player of the series with an aggregate of 279 in 4 innings. After this India played a triangular tournament involving Aus & NZ at home where they reached the final but lost to Aus there. Aus had scored only 235 in 50 overs and India could have won if they had put in a little more punch. Then the Indian Team went on tour to Aus where

they drew the series 1-1 with Rahul Dravid scoring a massive 619 in the series and VVS Laxman too hitting two big hundreds 178 & 148. The Austrlians rightly named him Very Very Special (VVS). Laxman was developing as an extraordinary batsman for all conditions. Sachin too hit a double ton (241*).

This series was followed by a tour of Pak in which India beat them comprehensively in both the Test Series (2-1) and the ODI series (3-2). India were now in top form. This series also saw Virender Sehwag's triple Century in the first Test. The next season had four back-to-back ODI tournaments involving India - Asia Cup, Natwest Series, Videocon Triangular Tournament and the Champions trophy. India showed some promise but could not win any trophy. They reached the final of Asia Cup but could not chase 228. They lost Natwest 1-2 and didn't reach the final of the Videocon tournament. In Champions Trophy they exited in the preliminary round winning only a match against Kenya and losing to Pak in the QF. After this India lost an important Test Series to Aus at home (1-2). It was a four-Test series which Aus dominated easily. India surrendered to their might. The next tour to BD was a party where India swept the Test series 2-0 and the ODI series 2-1. Over the next two years India won four ODI bilateral series by big margins. They beat Pak 4-1(5), SL 4-1(5), Eng 6-1(7) and WI 6-1(7). This was a big achievement and Yuvraj Singh was a major contributor in this period. He was in tremendous form and won the Man of the Series award three times out of four. Meanwhile India also won Test Series against SA (1-0)(2) and SL (2-0)(3). But India's biggest failure came in 2007 when India falied to enter the last eight stage. They crashed before BD and went out of the tournament. It was a major disappointment for India as a World Cup comes only once in 4 years and therefore carries huge emotions and feelings attached with it. India's ouster from these tournie was a very big failure.

Post the 2007 WC, India have been doing reasonably well and have been winning big matches and series consistently in both Tests and ODIS. Under Dhoni's captaincy India won a series agianst Eng, one against Pak, a Test against Aus in Aus, another against Eng in 2008, leveled a series versus SA in 2008, won a series against Aus at home 2-0(4), beat NZ in NZ 1-0(3), SL in Ind 2-0(3) and equaled with SA at home 1-1. All these were big accomplishments and India during this period did fairly well in ODIs too. They won the CommonWealth Bank series in Aus in 2008 and the Asia Cup in 2010.

The last one year has been extremely intense, where India has been fighting big teams like SA, Aus & NZ. They won against Aus 2-0(2) in home series, beat NZ at home (1-0)(3), leveled SA in SA (1-1)(3) and equaled SL in SL (1-1)(3). The win in SL, the two victories against Aus, the win against NZ and the one against SA at Durban were big wins as they all came very hard-fought. And VVS Laxman was a major contributor in all these matches. He stood tall in each of these five contests and scored big hundreds in each of them.

Now the next event is the WC and it is bound to be a big competition.

All the best India