Cricketing Year 2010 — the Likely Formidables!

The New Year is upon us and from a cricketing perspective, it would be fair to say that this could prove to be one of the most closely-contested cricketing seasons. For starters, India and Australia would fight it hard to decide who gets to be the best test team with South Africa and England watching the progress of these two teams closely. South Africa need to regroup to a certain extent and revamp their brand of cricket if they are to become serious contenders for the ODI’s numero uno status and for the top-end of test ranking too. The team seems to be suffered from a lack of creativity on the field and their players, for some inexplicable reason, seem down and aren’t their usual, chirpy self and the bowlers aren’t prepared to get in on with the batsmen. While India’s ascendancy will be closely monitored and followed by millions of fans, it is Pakistan that could turn out to be the real wild card. Agreed that the team has not had the best of time yet, in Australia, but they are getting a semblance of building formidable bowling unit and their batting is slowly picking-up. I would say that England has miles to go, if each mile can be equalled to a decade, before being considered serious ODI material but yes, they do have the resources to be the test championship team. Of course, all these calculations and predictions have no meaning if the recently resurgent Aussies are back to their old ways. Under Ponting, they saw a harrowing period in the first part of 2009 but are now on the way to recovery and the small period of putting in the right pieces to solve their batting order conundrum and filtering bowlers for each format of the game is near completion. If their recent progress is any indication, they may re-assert themselves as the unquestioned world champions in every format of the game.