From Indian cricket’s perspective, 2022 was a year that promised plenty but delivered little. The headlines were dominated by the change of guard at the helm – both the team and management level – and the trend continues. Expectedly, the Indian men’s team played plenty of cricket throughout but produced contrasting results in bilateral and multi-team events. While they were, more or less, dominant in one-on-one exchanges but their annoying propensity to crash and burn in continental/global events remained.
The year began with Virat Kohli’s stunning decision to step away from the Test captaincy as the reins were completely handed over to Rohit Sharma who in turn struggled with various fitness concerns. The captaincy changed hands so frequently that by the first seven months, the team had been led by seven different men.
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There were two major limited-overs tournaments that India were part of – Asia Cup and T20 World Cup. Both events began on promising notes. Both events ended in crushing exits. And then there was a small matter of frequent breaks and persistent injuries to first-choice stars.
Bilateral Kings
The team took part in as many as 20 bilateral series – three in Test cricket, eight in ODIs and 9 in T20Is. They emerged victorious in 15 of them (two in Tests, five in ODIs and eight in T20Is). They also toured England for a rescheduled Test which was suspended in 2021 due to covid issues and a defeat in it resulted in the series finishing two-all.
The year began on an ominous note when they suffered defeats in the remaining two Tests of their South Africa tour after starting the series with a win in the Boxing Day Test. It was followed by a humbling 0-3 clean sweep in ODI series before the team returned home to host West Indies and Sri Lanka to return to winning ways.
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The South Africans toured India twice during 2022 – once for five T20Is right after the conclusion of IPL – and then closer to the T20 World Cup for three T20Is. Their first sojourn delivered a 2-2 series draw while the next saw India winning 2-1.
India didn’t lose a single T20I series but they appeared a bit iffy in one-dayers losing series to the likes of South Africa, New Zealand and Bangladesh. The red-ball cricket was an even affair with a series defeat to South Africa followed by victories over Sri Lanka (home) and Bangladesh (away).
Major Trophy Drought Remains
Captaincy changed hands. Rohit, the serial IPL winner, was the man to end India’s wait for an ICC trophy. In fact, the team had a shot at winning two major events – Asia Cup and T20 World Cup. Both tourneys resulted in disappointments. At the continental event, India exited in the Super-eight stage while in the world cup, they were thrashed by 10 wickets in the semis by eventual champions England.
Plenty of reasons were cited and not least the absence of match-winners Bumrah and Jadeja. There were suggestions to embrace split captaincy and split coaches – a formula England have successfully applied.
The Injury Galore
Rohit. Jasprit Bumrah. KL Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja, Deepak Chahar, Mohammed Shami, Except for Chahar, the rest of them play all three formats for India. And at various stages, they kept getting injured. Even the newbie Kuldeep Sen, a fast bowler, ended up getting injured right after making his ODI debut.
The two biggest blows though came in the form of Bumrah and Jadeja – the former getting injured right before the Asia Cup and the latter midway through the competition. Both didn’t play competitive cricket again for the remainder of 2022. Visits to National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru were frequent.
And this is when players have been taking/given regular breaks. It’s an issue that even the new BCCI president has made a priority.
Transition Begins
The next generation awaits. They have been waiting for some time now. They weren’t getting as many chances as they would have liked. Why? To replace well-established stars, the newcomers have to make the right noise which, to their credit, they are making without fail. The noise aside, the behemoths must also be past their sell-by dates to be dislodged. Right? Well, after much dilly-dallying, the team management finally to have arrived at the stage towards the end of the year when yet another youngish squad for a T20I series against Sri Lanka was named.
Of course, the BCCI hasn’t announced any such intention but quietly, the winds of change have started blowing through.
Pandya Takes The Centre stage
The days of his off-field controversy and fitness concerns seem to be long gone. A fitter and mature Hardik Pandya has taken the centre stage now. Thanks to his IPL triumph where he led debutant Gujarat Titans to a title win, the allrounder was trusted with the T20I captaincy, although occasionally, but he hasn’t disappointed. Such has been his impression that Pandya is now being projected as Rohit’s successor in ODIs as well.
New Generation Arrives
Shubman Gill, Arshdeep Singh and Ishan Kishan – all three in their early 20s – have left quite an impression this year. While Arshdeep steadily solidified his reputation with eye-catching performances in Asia Cup and T20 WC, Gill peeled off maiden century in both ODI and Test cricket to make a solid claim for a regular spot. And if there were any doubts over whether Ishan belongs to the big stage, they have been put to rest thanks to a record-breaking double-ton in an ODI against Bangladesh late in the year.
Kohli’s Interesting Year
Kohli finally ended his wait for an international century during a dead rubber against Afghanistan in the Asia Cup – his maiden such score in T20I cricket. Later, he would also peel off an ODI century during a contest which will be remembered more for Ishan’s stunning double-century.
His unbeaten 82 off 53 against Pakistan during a world cup group stage contest was certainly a highlight of the year and the straight six off Haris Rauf will go down as an iconic moment in T20I history.
However, Tests, a format Kohli rates above all, remained his worst. In 11 Test innings through the year, the 34-year-old crossed 50 just once and scored a total of 265 runs in them. Even Ravichandran Ashwin managed more Test runs than Kohli.
Ganguly Bows Out
In mid-October, world cup winner Roger Binny was elected as the 36th president of the world’s richest cricket board. That Binny would be named as the head of the body was certain from the moment when he became the only candidate to have filed a nomination for the post. The development brought an end to former captain Sourav Ganguly’s three-year rein who reportedly fell out of favour in the board. Jay Shah retained the role of General Secretary as did Rajeev Shukla who remains the board vice president.
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