IT really is a bit of cheek. You know, the sort where second best steps up to claim the prize they do not deserve. But that is the crazy format and points system the International Cricket Council has designed to distinguish the champions from the pack of also rans.Imagine it if you can.Australia giving everyone, well almost everyone a real walloping and up steps South Africa to claim the crown, or in this case the ICC Mace, and add a few rupees worth to their argument of being the best side in the world. Come on, guys. Get real. Cheek? There should be another word for it. Impertinence perhaps.or what about impudence? Even brazenness fits in to the category about the wannabes who are in reality trying to be the world Test champions. Their 2002 record does not bare championship material scrutiny.If at Test level, 2002 has generally been a year that the Australians have ploughed their opposition into the turf, other sides have also displayed spirited Tests and limited overs international rivalry, as well as the competitiveness. Yet, from Melbourne and Sydney to Johannesburg, Cape Town, Colombo and Sharjah and back home again, in an Ashes series which has had the Poms flattened against the canvass, the baggy green caps have ruled.So where does this place the other countries? New Zealand, as an example, hang on to third place on the Test roll call by right; Sri Lanka, who were back in February grumbling about how their position should be that of second place as a Test nation, and the same because their LOI record was pretty good too. As with the South Africans it was move aside the Wimps of Oz. All the Lankans were forgetting was that as a general rule, South Asian sides are bad travellers. They not only came adrift in England and grumbled about it as they lost first the Test series and were then pulverised into a poor third place behind India and England. Suddenly the realisation dawned. Sri Lanka might look good at home, but abroad they cut a sorry image. Well, that is, outside South Asia.South Africa have really had a soft Test and LOI home programme since September: Bangladesh, Si Lanka and now Pakistan, the genuine Jekyll and Hyde of the international circuit. No one knows what to expect from the Waqar Younis troupe: demolition experts one game and paper tigers the next. What has not helped has been injuries and the reluctance of senior players such as Wasim Akram to lend his experience when it is needed.India’s year has not ended as well as coach John Wright and the captain Saurav Ganguly would have liked. The batting was described by New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming as being a little nervous: after two low scoring Tests where seam bowlers had taken out a permanent patient on conditions, it is a fair description. Anyone who watched the Hamilton Test and then the Auckland LOI debacle could understand the feeling.Yet, of all the memorable moments this year, Indians feature in at least a large number. There is still a feeling they were robbed of squaring the Test series in the West Indies, and should have, by rights won the series in England following their impressive NatWest final win over England at Lord’s.Hey.remember that game? Lord’s on a Saturday in a bustling St John’s Wood? The top order blown away and a couple of youngsters in Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif repairing the damage and then leading the side to an incredible victory. It was not the brash bravado of youth which did it but the character and the will to win. And there were those gleefully celebrating with the giant tricolour outside. Sights and sound the tough, faceless security machine will not allow at the 2003 World Cup. This is the event where sterility will prevail and the exuberant ecstasy and the spice of South Asia will be subjected to the long arm of Po-faced bureaucracy.Enjoyment? Nah, that is not what this World Cup is about. It is about the chilling image last seen in the grim days of apartheid.It was also the year Sachin Tendulkar was criticised for not performing when India was in need of his remarkable batting skills. Yet he managed to edge in front of Sir Donald Bradman’s record of 29 Test centuries. It was also the year when Rahul Dravid carved his own special niche as a batsman and earned the sobriquet ‘The Wall’. It has nothing to do with his charm, courtesy and good looks.and (oh, dear, here we go again.) run-making abilities. Four consecutive Test centuries is a rare enough event, but he achieved it with calm and style.There was also the power and style of the human battering ram known as Virender Sehwag. Oh how the Poms quaked and squealed. At Premadasa Stadium, they collectively patted themselves on the back. They had scored 269 as Ian Blackwell lifted them out of the doldrums in the ICC Champions Trophy. Along comes Sehwag: 126 of 104 balls and the ghost of Lord’s was revived.It was also the year when the West Indies fortunes seemed to be on the rise, and significantly without Brian Lara; when Andy Flower did what he could to prop up Zimbabwe’s cause and Bangladesh found life a little tougher than their supporters had hoped.
