Batting in cricket is about building partnerships. The surest way of getting a big score is by stringing together a few big partnerships. That’s what coaches want from the batters. Some batters seem to play well together and help each other to score big runs. They usually form big partnerships and put their team in a strong position in the process. Let us look at a few batting pairs who formed a great partnership.

The Sri Lanka cricket team has not being playing at it’s best for some time now. Coming into the test match against South Africa in Durban in Feb 2019, the team had lost 16 of its last 18 international matches, which included a drubbing away at Australia preceded by a thrashing at home by England in both the Tests and ODIs.

Ben Stokes is currently counted amongst the best all rounders in the world. A player who is just as capable of taking 5 wickets or scoring a hundred every time he plays. He is the most expensive overseas player ever sold at an IPL auction.

At 27 years old, he has potentially many years of cricket ahead of him and has a chance to go down as one of the all time best to ever play and most certainly one of the all time best to play for England.

But, it could all have been so different. This chance could have been taken away from due to a scuffle between him and a couple of other people outside a nighclub in 2017.

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Shane Keith Warne was born on 13th September 1969 and at the time of his retirement in January 2007 was the highest wicket taker in Tests. He made his Test debut against India in 1991-92 at Sydney and had a pretty ordinary debut taking just 1 wicket and conceding 150 runs in his 45 overs. At that time even the most gifted fortune teller would not have been able to look into his crystal ball and predict the bright future and the glittering career that Warne would have. Since the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, the dominance by the West Indies with their accent on pace bowling meant that the spin bowling cupboards in world cricket were bare and that spin bowling, particularly leg-spin bowling was in danger of getting extinct. Even though Warne made a pretty unspectacular beginning to his Test career, he rose from strength to strength and by the time of his retirement was unarguably the greatest leg-spinner of all-time. 

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There may be some doubt as to whom the greatest fast bowler of all-time is. There may be some doubt as to whom the greatest spinner of all-time is. There may be some doubt as to whom the greatest wicket-keeper of all-time is. However, there is no doubt as to who the greatest batsman of all-time is. Which yardstick or parameter you use to judge greatness, no matter how skewed or biased you may be, the greatest batsman of all-time is Donald George Bradman. The margin between him and the second greatest batsman of all-time is probably as much as the margin between the 1st and the 20th best in any other sport. And that is not giving in to hyperbole.

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The Stock of Women’s cricket is on the rise and its about time. There are more and more sound bites available in the media, on social media, in the news papers and this is only good news. Like their male counterparts, women cricketers deserve their time in the sun and 2017 and now 2018 were years when women’s cricket took all the right steps.

As we take a look back at the year 2018, we will focus on a few key tournaments, series and events that made the news.

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2018 was an eventful year for cricket. A look back will show just why. It helped that the cricket played on the field certainly kept things interesting and some events on and off the field got a lot of attention.

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When India stepped down on Australian shores in November 2018, there was an air of expectation that something special could happen. There was genuine hope that this Indian side could do something no side before it had done - which was to win a test series in Australia for the first time ever.

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Rahul Dravid made his Test debut for India along with Sourav Ganguly in the 2nd Test versus England at Lords during India’s tour of England in 1996. He made a solid and composed 95 which did not get the due credit that it deserved because it was overshadowed by Ganguly’s 131 in the same Test. That was the story of Dravid’s career. He did not get the due credit that he deserved because his career overlapped with that of more flamboyant and charismatic batsmen like Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and VVS Laxman. This could be looked at in two ways depending on a person’s point of view. It either deprived him of well-deserved recognition or it left him free to carry on with his job of scoring runs for India without being distracted by excessive attention. 

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Sourav Ganguly made his international debut for India as a precocious 19-year-old in an ODI against the West Indies at the Gabba in Brisbane in January 1992. He had a pretty unremarkable debut scoring just 3 runs and that coupled with supposed rumors about his attitude led to him being consigned to the cricketing wilderness for more than 4 years. He made a dream debut to his Test career, scoring 131 on his Test debut at the home of cricket, Lords in 1996. Most players would give their right arm to have such a beginning to their Test career and to announce his entry on such a stage is the stuff that fairytales are made of and Ganguly silenced all his detractors with that innings. Ganguly’s 131 against England is the highest score by a debutant at Lords and he is one of just 105 players who have scored a Test century on debut. 

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