England are staring at a whitewash in the Ashes. So it might seem odd to talk about consistency in 2017. But there is cricket outside The Ashes and when we look at performances in other major series throughout the year, one can spot traces of consistency, even if they are not at the desired levels.
Looking at contests that theoretically don’t fall in the category of a mismatch in Tests and ODIs, three teams showed enough consistency to raise hopes of better performances in the upcoming season.
India maintained their performance throughout the year better than the rest of the teams.
After the second T20 against Sri Lanka, India’s record looked very impressive – seven wins from 11 Tests with one defeat, 21 wins in 29 ODIs with seven losses, and eight wins and four defeats in T20s. Virat Kohli’s team maintained their position as the No1 Test team while sitting pretty on the number two spot in ODIs.
The Indians reached the final of the Champions Trophy and a heavy 180-run defeat to Pakistan in the final was the one major blemish on their record which stopped them from becoming the runaway leaders of the game.
Prolific Kohli grabs second position in Test rankings https://t.co/D47eLQGE2n #cricket @icc @imVkohli
— ICC Media (@ICCMediaComms) December 7, 2017
The emergence of a strong pace attack led by Jasprit Bumrah, Mohamed Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Ishant Sharma, along with the other-wordly exploits of Kohli – who scored an astonishing 2,818 runs from 46 matches across all formats – added a new dimension to the Indian team’s performance.
The surprise package of 2017 were New Zealand. They won four Tests out of seven with one defeat, won 10 and lost eight ODIs and had a 4-3 record in T20s.
The South Africans found the going tough in their 1-0 win in the three match series in New Zealand in March and the Kiwis fell just six runs short of a sensational ODI series win in India in October.
The Aussies did equally well abeit in the longest format. They lost a hard-fought series in India 2-1 and pushed India all the way right until the penultimate day of the last Test in Dharamsala. They started the year with a 3-0 series win against Pakistan at home and managed a respectable 1-1 Test series draw in Bangladesh.
And in The Ashes, the Aussies proved to be almost untouchable, reinforcing the status of Australia as the toughest venue to visit.
In ODI, however, the Aussies had a disappointing year although the sample size is not big. They only played 15 matches and lost eight, winning five. That included a 4-1 series defeat in India and an early exit from the Champions Trophy where rain ruined two of their matches.
Pakistan hit a few highs but also saw some alarming dips. While the year will be remembered for Pakistan’s win over India in the final of the Champions Trophy and a commendable 12 wins and six defeats in ODIs, they crashed to a 3-0 Test series loss in Australia and surprisingly lost 2-0 to Sri Lanka in the longest format in the UAE.
England, on the other hand, will look back at the year with a fair amount of despondency. Not only have they been humiliated in The Ashes, but alcohol-related incidents involving Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow and Ben Duckett have raised questions over the behaviour of its players.
Even the Sri Lankans, after crashing to nine successive defeats at home to India, redeemed themselves towards the end of the year by winning the two Test series against Pakistan in the UAE before giving the Indians a torrid time in the three match Test series – which they lost 1-0.
So while we continue to see one-sided encounters, there have been enough fightbacks to maintain a semblance of balance.
Two major developments this year promise to breathe new life into cricket in coming years.
Firstly, the ICC approved plans for a bona fide Test match world championship and an ODI league. The first two-year Test championship with the game’s top nine teams is scheduled to begin in 2019 with the top two teams as of April 2021 playing in a championship final. In ODIs, the league featuring the top 13 teams will begin in 2020-21 leading up to the 2023 World Cup.
It is thus hoped that the days of bilateral series without any context are well and truly behind us. Also, hopefully, teams won’t use matches as training grounds for bigger challenges.
And in even more heart-warming news, Afghanistan and Ireland were accorded Test status after years of toiling away at the Associate level.
Test cricket also embraced the idea of day-night matches wholeheartedly with The Ashes hosting its first pink ball Test.
Times sure are changing.
After a 124-run defeat to India, Pakistan reeled off wins against South Africa, Sri Lanka and England to reach the final.
There, the Sarfraz Ahmed-led team piled on 338-4 before demolishing India’s line-up in a 180-run victory.
This after they had barely qualified as the eighth and last team for the tournament.
Hasan Ali emerged as a world-class quick.
Virat Kohli hit three double tons in 2017 but Smith’s 239 at the WACA sneaks ahead.
Australia were chasing 403 in the first innings but England just didn’t know how to dismiss him.
Smith simply made the opposition give up all hope.
The 19-year-old Afghanistan legspinner stunned the West Indies in June with the fourth-best figures in ODI history.
It was the year Rashid announced himself on the world stage, going for $600,000 in the IPL auction and finishing with 60 wickets from 26 international matches.
Administrators are perennially looking at ways to keep the new generation of cricket fans engaged.
In T10 – launched in the UAE with matches lasting 90 minutes – the game has a new format that can theoretically be sold to new markets.
The iconic duo called it a day after a decade of holding the team together.
Younis, the only Pakistani with 10,000 Test runs, and Misbah, who took them to the top of the Test rankings, will be sorely missed.
OPENERS: Shikhar Dhawan, David Warner
MIDDLE ORDER: Hashim Amla, Virat Kohli (c), Steve Smith, Joe Root
WICKET-KEEPER: Quinton de Kock
ALL-ROUNDER: Shakib Al Hasan
PACERS: Kagiso Rabada, Josh Hazlewood, Hasan Ali
12th man Ben Stokes
