The monkey was finally off India’s back in a roller-coaster 2024 when the financial giants of international cricket ended a 13-year wait for a world title, lost a rare Test series at home and dealt with transition triggered by both expected and unexpected retirements by the stalwarts of the game.
There was plenty of action over the last 12 months that kept the loyal Indian fan interested.
The Indian cricket team and its unparalleled fan base were desperate for an ICC trophy after repeatedly faltering in the knock-out stages over the past decade, most recently in the ODI World Cup final at home last year.
The trophy finally came home after Rohit Sharma and Co. played a near perfect tournament to become the T20 World Cup champions in the USA and the Caribbean.
India’s clarity of thought throughout the one-month long event was remarkable and with a little bit of luck on their side, especially in the final at Barbados, they were able to go the distance.
On undercooked pitches in New York, they were pace heavy before unleashing their trump card Kuldeep Yadav from the Super 8 stage of the tournament.
India picked as many as four spinners in the squad but played three in Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel and Kuldeep.
With Jadeja not getting to do much with both bat and ball, Axar came of age in the competition producing match-winning performances with both and ball.
The pace duo of Jasprit Bumrah and Arshdeep Singh also played their part to perfection, collecting 15 and 17 wickets respectively.
In the batting department, Rohit led from the front with a fearless approach that demoralised opposition attacks. His opening partner Kohli was not able to make the contributions that were expected out of him but the superstar came up with an innings of immense substance when it mattered the most — his not-so-fluent 76 of 59 balls kept India in the final after a poor start.
The contributions from all-rounder Hardik Pandya, future captain Suryakumar Yadav and Rishabh Pant, playing his first international event following his comeback from a life-threatening car accident, were also noteworthy. It was also a fitting farewell for head coach Rahul Dravid, whose tenure drew to a close.
With Rohit calling it a day, it was expected that Hardik will lead the T20 side into the transition phase, having captained the side in the former’s absence.
However, Dravid’s successor Gautam Gambhir had a different line of thinking as he played a major hand in elevating India’s best T20 batter Suryakumar to the leadership position ahead of the series in Sri Lanka.
To be fair to Suryakumar, the team has ticked all the boxes since he took over, also witnessing the rise of Tilak Verma and rebirth of the likes of Sanju Samson and Varun Chakaravarthy.
While India moved on from the mighty duo of Rohit and Kohli in the shortest format rather quickly, the same is unlikely in the Test team.
The chatter around the future of senior players in the Test team has gained momentum after India’s first whitewash at home in a three-match series and more recently, the sudden retirement of premier off-spinner R Ashwin.
India’s loss to New Zealand in their own backyard was easily one of the most embarrassing outcomes for the team in Test cricket over the past decade.
India is the engine of the global game and its influence on the sport increased further with the elevation of Jay Shah as ICC chairman, making him the fifth from the country at the helm of the governing body after Jagmohan Dalmiya, Sharad Pawar, N Srinivasan and Shashank Manohar.
Shah took over in early December and has already made his presence felt by ending the deadlock over the hosting of the Champions Trophy in Pakistan by ensuring consensus for a reciprocal hybrid model in which India will not be required to travel across the border for any ICC event till 2028.
Amid all the drama in men’s cricket, women’s cricket continued to be relatively stagnant in terms of performance with ODI and T20 debacles in Australia along with an early exit from the T20 World Cup being the talking points.
However, the team did manage to log its first home series triumph at home in five years by beating the West Indies in a T20 showdown.
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The Tribune, the largest selling English daily in North India, publishes news and views without any bias or prejudice of any kind. Restraint and moderation, rather than agitational language and partisanship, are the hallmarks of the newspaper. It is an independent newspaper in the real sense of the term.
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Remembering Sardar Dyal Singh Majithia
