As we approach 2020, The Cricketer looks back on some of the moments than have shaped the cricketing world over the course of the last 10 years
Cricket is learning. This law change represented huge progress for the game as it looks to tackle the dangers of head injuries and concussions. Marnus Labuschagne became the game’s first concussion substitute when he replaced Steve Smith at Lord’s during the 2019 Ashes.
Smith had been struck by a Jofra Archer bouncer; he initially left the field before returning at the fall of a subsequent wicket. The next day, however, he had been removed from the game, having been diagnosed with concussion later on.
Since then, Jermaine Blackwood has replaced Darren Bravo and Theunis de Bruyn has been brought in for Dean Elgar. When Bangladesh faced India in November, the game saw its first double change; Mehedi Hasan and Taijul Islam were drafted in for Liton Das and Nayeem Hasan after they suffered blows.
Curiously, given the makeup of Bangladesh’s squad, Mehedi was unable to bowl after replacing Das. The ICC regulations state that the substitution must be like for like. With Bangladesh without a spare batsman to come in for Das, Mehedi – an off-spinner by trade – could only play as a makeshift batsman and was unable to bowl. When the sport looks back in years to come, this may well have been among its most significant changes.
It’s back. A fine piece of news with which to complete the decade. It was in 2009 that a terrible attack on the bus carrying the Sri Lankan team in Lahore forced the suspension of international cricket in Pakistan.
Since then, top-level cricket has been at a premium in a nation obsessed with the sport. The Pakistan Super League will hold its fifth edition in the new year – its first to be played wholly in its home country.
Zimbabwe became the first full members to return, playing a limited-overs series in 2015; Afghanistan and Kenya – both associate members at the time – had travelled in 2013 and 2014.
Shortly afterwards, Bangladesh Women followed suit, before the PSL final came home in 2017. “Even though Peshawar came out on top, cricket was the real winner in Lahore,” Darren Sammy reflected afterwards.
Sri Lanka and West Indies have since returned. And then, Sri Lanka came back once again – 10 years on from the tragedy. First, they took part in a white-ball series, before ending the decade with a landmark Test series. Every Pakistan player involved played their first Test on home soil. A heartwarming end to a troubled – and troubling – time.
The exact origins of this are up for debate; some pinpoint the 2007 tournament, when neither India nor Pakistan made it out of their respective groups – they were usurped by Bangladesh and Ireland. The subsequent theory being that it was decided by the game’s authorities that this, quite simply, could not happen again. Others point to the takeover of the global game by the ‘Big Three’.
Either way, the consequence has been clear; a 10-team tournament committed to serving only the elite. A format has been found that maximises broadcast opportunities, with each side playing at least nine games, as well as two warmup matches.
It is not a competition fit to grow the game, but rather to cement the positions of the top sides. Scotland, who beat England in one of the decade’s greatest ODIs in 2018, missed out on a place at the 2019 tournament. Ireland, who have served each World Cup with such spirit and ability, were also absent. Other similar stories have simply not been given the global platform to grow.
Football has long been considering increasing its flagship tournament to a 48-team affair. Rugby is looking at a growth to 24 teams. Cricket, 16 teams just 12 years ago, is down to almost half that figure.
Pakistan won in their first Test series on home soil since 2009
At the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, India became the first country to win the World Cup on home soil. Yuvraj Singh was named the player of the tournament, but it was Sachin Tendulkar’s triumph.
The Indian icon was carried away on the shoulders of his teammates after MS Dhoni led a successful chase in the final against Sri Lanka, with the wicketkeeper finishing unbeaten on 91. For Tendulkar, it was a memorable victory in his final World Cup.
Only Tillakaratne Dilshan scored more runs than his 482. In the final, he failed to play the match-winning hand he would have wanted to, falling for 18 after Virender Sehwag had been dismissed without scoring – both to Lasith Malinga. But after Gautam Gambhir departed for 97, it was left – fittingly, perhaps – to Dhoni and Yuvraj to make history.
Five years old and now its own standalone competition, the importance of the rise of the Women’s Big Bash cannot be understated in the last decade. Arguably the world’s premier T20 competition of either gender, its impact on the growth of the women’s game has been remarkable.
Cricket Australia have led the way in building a professionalised structure for female cricketers, with a player pool almost five times that of England, their closest competitors. The WBBL has been a central part of that, with the best players from around the world all having taken part at one stage or another.
“We have had certain research done at different times during the cricket season and there were times in the last cricket season when two of the top three favourite Big Bash players were actually women,” Alistair Dobson, head of Big Bash Leagues at Cricket Australia, told The Cricketer ahead of this year’s edition.
“When you’re putting the men’s and women’s leagues up against each other, the role that the women’s players like Ellyse Perry and Alyssa Healy have as high-profile cricketers is on a par with some of the bigger-name men’s cricketers.” The result of all this: Australian dominance and a sport that is growing rapidly. And that is little surprise.
The Women's Big Bash has become a standalone competition
Perhaps, the most overdue development of the decade. The ICC – rightly – views T20 cricket as the way forward in terms of developing the global game. It is shorter, it is more sustainable, it is not so much watered down as condensed enough so as to attract new, diverse audiences.
And so, it was announced in April 2018 that from the beginning of 2019, all 105 ICC members would be granted T20I status in men’s cricket. In the women’s game, it would be introduced from July 2018.
Some have decried it is an unnecessary step that cheapens the game. For the world game, however, its significance is enormous; it bridges an enormous gap between the status quo and all else.
Argentina’s Pedro Arrighi now holds the seventh-best T20I bowling figures of all time; Ankush Nanda of Luxembourg sits 10th on that list. Czech Republic made 278 for 4 against Turkey in August – it is the joint-highest T20I score of all time. And that’s the way it should be. Cricket is cricket. Countries are countries. International cricket is international cricket.
After India’s senior batsmen declared the Decision Review System to be unreliable after becoming frustrated with it during a series against Sri Lanka in 2008, they held out for a further eight years.
The ICC was left embarrassed that its principal innovation would remain unused by its biggest market. In retrospect, it was a sham that a team’s senior players should hold so much sway. It did not suit the methods of India’s top-order players.
Every other Test nation was happy with the ball-tracking technology. Even if it could never be proven to be 100 per cent accurate, then what it provided was a greater precision than could be provided with the naked eye.
When England toured India in 2016, this finally changed. The potency of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravi Jadeja on home soil doubtless played a part; where Sachin Tendulkar was against the idea, the spin duo were all in favour; after all, the system has – in the last decade – changed the way in which batsmen have been forced to defend, especially against spin.
After a series of poor umpiring decisions against New Zealand, Virat Kohli, who had replaced MS Dhoni as captain, became convinced that the time was right.
November 27, 2014: a tragedy that shook cricket and the wider sporting world. Philip Hughes was struck on the neck by a bouncer during a Sheffield Shield match. After undergoing surgery and being placed into an induced coma, he never regained consciousness.
Tributes flew in for a desperately talented left-hander and a highly-respected young man. Pakistan and New Zealand promptly suspended the second day of their third Test; people shared photos of their bats in his memory across social media. Michael Clarke, a great friend of Hughes, gave a moving speech at his funeral.
He was named as Australia’s 13th man as Australia faced India shortly afterwards, while David Warner and Steve Smith both raised their bats in commemoration when they passed 63 – Hughes’ not out score. The scorecard from his final game was amended; it now reads ‘not out’ rather than ‘retired hurt’.
His ODI number – 64 – has since been retired. There could never be a positive to emerge from all this, but cricket has had to learn. Stem guards have been developed to protect the area on the neck that was previously exposed. Concussion substitutes have been written into Test cricket. Hughes’ memory will never be forgotten.
Steve Smith lost the Australian captaincy as a result of the sandpaper scandal
It was the piece of camerawork that led to the breakdown of a team, the suspension of its captain, its vice-captain and its young pretender. Former South Africa seamer Fanie de Villiers directed TV camera operators to focus in on Australia’s handling of the ball while in the field. The rest is history.
Cameron Bancroft was spotted – sandpaper in-tow; he and Steve Smith ‘fronted up’ in a post-day press conference, only to skirt around the details of the matter. The pair – along with David Warner – were sent home in disgrace.
Days later, it all came out. They were handed long-term suspensions by Cricket Australia, while the fallout was brutal. CA chairman David Peever quit following a scathing external review into the governing body’s culture; chief executive James Sutherland had already resigned. The departure of head coach Darren Lehmann was also hastened.
Justin Langer and Tim Paine came in to oversee a difficult year; Smith, Warner and Bancroft have all since returned. Smith’s remarkable Ashes series, perhaps, was the moment that drew a line under an unsavoury episode – one that split the sport down the middle between horror and faux outrage.
Where were you? So much has happened since that it is almost difficult to believe that this day that rocked the game could have taken place just 10 years ago.
Michael Holding was almost reduced to tears in the Sky studio as he discussed the reports in the News of the World. Mohammad Amir has since returned; there was always a level of sympathy for the young speedster, led astray by experienced teammates and role-models.
Neither Mohammad Asif nor Salman Butt have ever returned to the international fray. Neither, one suspects, would be terribly welcome.
Amir has rebuilt his career – he has never been quite the same bowler as the extraordinary teenage talent that both broke onto the scene and broke the hearts of fans worldwide, but he has become a well-respected cricketer once again.
He spent time at Portland Young Offenders Institute – a far cry from Lord’s, where at one stage he had sent England spiraling to 47 for 5. A tragic waste on so many levels and one of the game’s lowest-ever ebbs. An episode that will forever haunt the sport.
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