The holiday season is in full swing at the moment and in four days’ time, the world will bid goodbye to what was another eventful year of our lives, welcoming 2023 in the process.
And an eventful a year it was from the sporting perspective too, especially in the world of cricket which bore witness to a number of standout moments both in the men’s and women’s international game. From the rise of Bazball and Virat Kohli hitting a historic milestone to women’s game making its debut at CWG and multiple giant-killing acts in a single tournament, 2022 had it all.
As we prepare to bring the curtains down on the year, we take a look at some of the standout moments from international cricket across the year:
Bazball
Few terms have been more widely used in the sport than ‘Bazball’ — a term that has come to define England’s revolutionary aggressive approach to the red-ball game following the appointment of Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum as the Test captain and head coach respectively.
The English team, which had been going through a major slump until said appointments, adopted the kind of attack-from-the-outset attitude that McCullum had infused into the Black Caps during his time as captain in the previous decade. The result — England have won nine out of 10 Tests since Stokesy and Baz took over, starting with a 3-0 sweep against McCullum’s former side New Zealand at home and including a historic series win by a similar margin in Pakistan more recently.
England’s T20 World Cup win
It’s not just the Test format where the English men’s team underwent a complete overhaul — white-ball captain Eoin Morgan was also sacked from his role, with the ECB appointing wicketkeeper-batter Jos Buttler as his successor and going for a separate white-ball coach in Matthew Mott.
Though things did not begin as smoothly for the Englishmen in white-ball cricket as it did for them in the longest format, Buttler and Co gradually began to show an improvement in their performances, going on to win a seven-match T20I series in Pakistan.
England beat Pakistan by five wickets to lift their second T20 World Cup title. Image: ICC/Twitter
And it was in the T20 World Cup in Australia where the side lived up to their full potential, reaching the semi-finals despite losing to Ireland in the Super 12s followed by a rained-off game, demolishing India in the semis before beating Pakistan in the final in front of a sold-out MCG, the very same venue where they had lost the 1992 ODI World Cup final.
Kohli ends century drought
Kohli had perhaps his the lowest point of his career this year; after resigning as the Test captain following the 1-2 series defeat in South Africa, which officially marked the end of the ‘Kohli Era’, his form further dipped during the home season and in the IPL. Kohli took a break following the tour of England, skipping the Zimbabwe and the West Indies tours and returned to action during the Asia Cup.
Virat Kohli notched up his 71st international century when India played Afghanistan at the recently-concluded Asia Cup, ending a long wait. AP
It was at the continental tournament where Kohli produced a knock that ended up becoming one of the most significant of the year, even if it did not count for much as far as India’s title hopes went, as the former India captain ended a near-three-year wait for an international century by smashing a scintillating 122 not out against Afghanistan in India’s final outing of the tournament.
Rise and Rise of SKY
Few players have had as much impact individually as India’s Suryakumar Yadav did. The Mumbai Indians batter, who was finding it difficult breaking into the Indian team a couple of years ago much to everyone’s surprise, is now an indispensable member of the Indian white-ball teams, especially T20, following his exploits in the tour of England, the T20 World Cup as well as in New Zealand.
Suryakumar Yadav celebrates after scoring a century against New Zealand. AP
What’s more, SKY was in the form of his life across 2022, which not only resulted in multiple awe-inspiring knocks but also helped him pip Pakistan’s Mohammad Rizwan and Babar Azam to the top of the ICC T20I batting rankings and finish the year with 1,164 runs at an average and strike rate of 46.56 and 187.43 respectively — the only batter to cross the 1K-run mark in the format this year.
Deepti Sharma’s run out
Running batters out at the non-striker’s end, a.k.a. ‘Mankading’, has been viewed as a controversial method of dismissal in some quarters even if the Marylebone Cricket Club, the custodian of the game’s laws, has legalised the move of dismissing a batter guilty of stealing an extra yard before the bowler completes his/her delivery.
Deepti Sharma runs out Charlie Dean in Lord’s ODI. Screenshot/Sony Liv
During the third women’s ODI between England and India at Lord’s, the hosts were putting up a spirited fight through it’s last-wicket pair of Charlie Dean and Freya Davies, and were looking set to pull off an unlikely win from a near-hopeless position when India all-rounder Deepti, having noticed Dean stepping out of her crease at the non-striker’s end for far too long, decided to whip the bails off and run Dean out before completing the fourth delivery of her eighth over.
Not only would the move help the Women in Blue seal a historic 3-0 sweep, it would also leave the cricketing world divided with fans, experts as well as former and current cricketers alike joining the conversation on Twitter.
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