Cricket in 2010: The good, bad and ugly of the game
The year 2010 has been an eventful one for cricket fans. Some teams have done well, some did badly and for a couple of teams the year was a complete disaster.
The better teams in 2010 were England, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754.
England can be considered the best team of 2010 easily, while the Australian team has not shown its true colours in the past year which saw them dropping in the rankings. It was a disastrous year for Pakistan as the team suffered a lot due to poor performances
and many controversies surrounding them.
The English team started the year with a strong performance in the Twenty20 World Cup. The first two Twenty20 World Cups had been dominated by Asian teams, as both finals were played between Asian sides. This year however things were different, as England
reached the final of the event along with their rivals Australia. Both teams defeated the 2009 finalists Pakistan and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758 in the semi-finals this year. England was dominant throughout the tournament and defeated Australia to lift the trophy.
For England, it was their star batsman Kevin Pietersen who dominated the World Cup and was named as the man-of-the-series. Players like Eoin Morgan, Jonathan Trott and Stuart Broad made their mark on the international arena and cemented their places in the
English team. Another big achievement for England was to retain the Ashes in Australia. This was the first time in 24 years that England managed to retain the Ashes in Australia. Apart from the Ashes, England did well against the Proteas in South Africa and
defeated Pakistan in England as well.
The Australian team started the year with a strong performance in the Twenty20 World Cup. The team was almost out of the semi-final, when Michael Hussey stunned the Pakistan team by scoring a 24-ball 60-run innings in the final few overs of the match. The
team was however unable to win the tournament and lost the final to England by seven wickets. Since then the Australian team was unable to settle down, and a few of the key players struggled for form throughout the year.
Australia was unable to win the series against Pakistan in England; the same team they crushed at the start of 2010. http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 also lost the Ashes to England at the end of the year, and Captain Ricky Ponting was criticised heavily for his poor form and captaincy
during the series.
2010 was without a doubt the worst year in the history of Pakistan cricket. The team was inconsistent during the Twenty20 World Cup and lost several series to other teams during the year. Pakistan was not even able to perform consistently in the shortest
format of the game in which they are ranked number one. Apart from many poor performances, the team was involved in a number of controversies throughout 2010. The worst of all was the spot-fixing and match-fixing allegations on the players.
Several players were suspended by the International Cricket Council (ICC) in the aftermath of those allegations, and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) also banned a few players from playing cricket. Due to all these issues, the team suffered and was unable
to cope with the pressure put on them by their opponents.
All in all, the English team had a dominant 2010 by putting together strong performances both at home and abroad. The Australian team started the year strongly but overall showed mixed performances in the year. The Pakistan team though was consistent for
the first time in many years; unfortunately however that consistency was shown in some poor form.
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