New Delhi: Virat Kohli continued his day job of mesmerising fans with a magical willow at a time when nearest rival Steve Smith found his stocks nosedive after the ball-tampering scandal in what was an intriguing 2018 for international cricket.
Kohli let words like ‘law of averages’ and ‘bad patch’ remain confined to grammar books as he went on stacking up astounding numbers across formats with monotonic regularity.
For ‘Captain Kohli’, it took nearly 12 months and three tough tours to shed the tag of poor travellers against an under-strength Australia after losing to South Africa and England earlier during the year.
His contemporary Smith endured an all-time low after his involvement in the ball-tampering scandal during a Test match against South Africa leading to a year-long ban alongside David Warner and Cameron Bancroft.
The cultural shift in Australia’s ‘win at all costs’ policy allegedly propagated by the country’s cricket establishment saw the downfall of Smith and Warner, the two pillars of the Australian cricket team.
But it provided India with an ideal platform to win their first series Down Under in 70 years with the talismanic Kohli at the helm.
On the batting front, Kohli scored 11 international hundreds (6 in ODIs and 5 in Tests) with 1000 plus runs (1322 in Tests and 1202 in ODIs) in the calendar year.
Whether it was the hard deck at Centurion or the seaming conditions of Birmingham, and Nottingham to the bouncy Perth, Kohli’s dazzling strokeplay was what kept the average fans hooked on to the game.
On a personal front, the tour of England and the 593 runs in the Test series reaffirmed his status as a modern day great, who shines the brightest despite the presence of equally talented players like Joe Root and Kane Williamson.
It was also the year when India found a bowling x-factor in Test cricket in the young Jasprit Bumrah. With nearly 48 wickets in his first Test season, Bumrah, with his unusually slingy action and searing pace from a seven-step run-up, has made the Indian pace attack the best in recent times.
Test cricket, save marquee contests, failed to garner eyeballs despite Afghanistan along with Ireland entering the five-day arena. Day/Night Tests may become the order of the day in the next two years.
Small teams like West Indies and Bangladesh showed sparks in shorter formats but their lack of interest in being competitive in the longest format is not exactly good news for the health of the game.
One of the high profile retirements during the year was that of AB de Villiers while India’s very own Gautam Gambhir also decided to call time on his career.