It146;s a SIX

Captain Cool and his boys gave us six highs and four lows in this year of turnarounds. Another big year ahead

Captain Cool and his boys gave us six highs and four lows in this year of turnarounds. Another big year ahead
Sport in general, and Indian cricket in particular, doesn8217;t look too kindly on crystal-gazers. Sania Mirza should have been riding the crest of success this year. She fell out of the top 100. Sourav Ganguly was finished in 2005. He retired this year, having added over 2,000 runs since that undignified dumping. Jeev Milkha Singh has risen from the ashes of a decade-long slump, and the Indian contingent that left for Beijing riding on little other than hope returned with three medals 8212; one of them gold.
The list of turnarounds, for better or for worse, is ridiculously long.
For instance: Around this time last year, India was in the middle of the first of three Tests against the world8217;s best team. Having bowled the Australians, still ruthless then, out for a commendable 343 in the Boxing Day showcase in Melbourne, India responded with a remarkable lack of purpose, blocking and missing and edging their way to 32 for two in 21 overs.

Ricky Ponting squeezed India8217;s batting all-stars with quirky field placements and the line-up, in the absence of Virender Sehwag, did not bother taking up the challenge. Stay at the wicket, and the runs will come, kids on India8217;s maidans are taught; a theory that the Aussies punched cricket-ball sized holes into.
That Test was lost long before the scorer shut his books on Day Four, and the 337-run defeat sparked self-deprecating sniggers as fans set themselves up for a long, hard winter.

How things have changed. Just a couple of months ago, the same Australians 8212; minus only Adam Gilchrist retired and Andrew Symonds suspended 8212; were down in Mohali. Replying to India8217;s 469, they edged and snicked and scampered their way to 22 for two off 13 overs. Mahendra Singh Dhoni was pulling rabbits out of the hat and placing them at gimmicky positions such as short-point and leg-slip. The Aussies lost the match by 320 runs, the series 2-0, and all was well with Indian cricket.
But was every win this year another giant stride towards No 1? Are we, as we tend to do, overreacting to the year gone by? Here8217;s a quick recap.

Highs and lows
The tri-series victory in Australia at the start of the year is right up there among India8217;s great one-day moments, and Dhoni8217;s stock went sky-rocketing after he had decided to undertake the tour without the services of Sourav Ganguly and, more surprisingly, Rahul Dravid.

There was disappointment to follow, as Graeme Smith8217;s hardened travellers drew a Test series in India 1-1 8212; India drawing level on a 22-yard mud-pit in Kanpur that took some sheen away from the result. They then lost a tri-series final to Pakistan in Bangladesh, and the Asia Cup final to Sri Lanka in Pakistan.

The Test series away in Sri Lanka followed, and put in a trance by Ajantha Mendis8217;s finger-flicking spells, they went down 2-1. A redemption of sorts was the one-day series win. The series victory against Australia 8212; how convincingly they won more than the 2-0 scoreline 8212; was the big high. And a 5-0 one-day thumping of Kevin Pietersen8217;s men, followed by a 1-0 result in the Tests, rounded off the year. Six highs vs four lows: Not outstanding, not poor, mostly up-and-down. Yet, the year was special, providing more than just blind hope for 2009.

Hope in numbers
Four Indian batsmen touched 1,000 runs in Test cricket this year and none of them look like slowing down. India found an opening combination that looks set in concrete, even accounting for random quirks of fate and form. Sehwag and Gambhir have bought themselves a fairly long rope with the 2,596 runs scored between them in 2008, while Ishant Sharma and Zaheer Khan are looking good in all conditions, with new ball and old.
In Dhoni, India seem to have found a captain who has slipped snugly into the role 8212; he does sometimes tread the thin line between confidence and arrogance, but does manage to say the right things.

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It will be a big year, too, for Yuvraj Singh. In the Test XI, he has replaced Ganguly 8212; one of two massive retirements, along with Anil Kumble. In March, the team travel to New Zealand, a country that has never been kind to touring sides. Even with their meagre bowling resources, they will test the Indian batsmen 8212; and though Yuvraj has made a couple of thumping points of late, a few failures in seaming conditions and the knives will be out again.

Dravid kept doomsday predictions at bay with a stoic century in the year8217;s final Test, but will remain under scrutiny in a much slower year on the Test match front than the one going by. India is scheduled to play just eight Tests in 2009 8212; two of them against Bangladesh.
The rest of the year is packed with one-day and T20 assignments. The big ones are the Champions Trophy, scheduled still to be held in Pakistan around November, and the Twenty20 world championships are set for June, where Dhoni 038; Co will be defending their crown.

Twenty plenty
And while all of those will be keenly watched, many more eyes will be tuned into the Indian Premier League8217;s second edition. Against all arguments based on conventional wisdom, the first edition turned out to be a blockbuster.

The Twenty20 Champions League, which was canned after the terror attacks in Mumbai, could end up as the acid test for the T20 format. And while we are, understandably, loathe to make predictions of any sort, if fans lap up a Victoria vs Middlesex T20 game like they do the Ashes, then we can all start praying for Test cricket.