by Arthur Crabtree » Mon Jan 08, 2018 11:15 pm
Cricket's great hope for the future T20 had a low profile at international level in 2017 as demonstrated by there not being a single vote for a T20 game of the year from our esteemed voters. So we move onto the older more established fifty over game which was received most attention in the Champion's Trophy held in England in June.
While a certain amount of cricket played in the past year, in all formats, had the ambience of interesting but rather nebulous background music, the highs were significant and when the staccato passages came, they cut through memorably and with passion. In limited overs cricket, that was best exemplified by the escalating swell of Pakistan's Champion's Trophy campaign. It must be true that no neutral party favoured the Pakistan team to win the competition. They seemed to be losing the tag of unpredictable mavericks due to their recent propensity being preordained losers.
In England the previous summer they had lost heavily to the hosts, conceding the first four and winning only the most moribund of dead rubbers. As commonly in world competitions, Pakistan started up by losing to India, but they qualified for the semi finals thanks to a combination of Duckworth-Lewis and net run rate. They were mostly galvanised by the late innings bowling of Hasan Ali who won most of the big points for them in getting out of the group and then through the semi final where they hit their stride by beating England with conviction.
PAKISTAN played INDIA in the final, the latest chapter in their passionate saga of defeat and revenge. And this time, having lost the opening game, requital came for Pakistan in the final where they beat India by 180 runs. Usually limited overs games are remembered for the tightness of their denouements, but this time we remembered one for the audaciousness of its twist. This colossal victory for Pakistan is the CMS ODI OF THE YEAR, and was the game when Pakistan once again became the capricious, unorthodox cowboys of romantic legend.
ROHIT SHARMA scored a big round zero that day, lbw to Mohammad Amir. But he notched an astonishing six centuries in the year, and for the last of these in December, his 208 against Sri Lanka in Mohali, he takes home the CMS BEST INNINGS IN AN ODI award, racked up off 153 balls. There have been seven ODI double hundreds, and Rohit Sharma has scored three of them and no one else has made two.
For the BEST BOWLING IN AN ODI, we go back to June 18 at the Oval and Pakistan's huge victory against India. Chasing Pakistan's 338-4, MOHAMMAD AMIR took two Indian wickets in his first ten balls... and they were Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. In his fourth over he took out Virat Kohli. Amir takes the award for his spell of 6-2-16-3, a sabotage from which India never recovered.
I always say that everybody's right.