2022: Indian cricket’s Annus horribilis - disappointments, controversies, and plenty of question marks

After a disappointing 2021, in which Team India faltered in two ICC events - the World Test Championship (WTC) final and the T20 World Cup - the year 2022 began with the hope of a fresh start. There was a shift in leadership roles as well.

While Rohit Sharma took over as full-time captain from Virat Kohli, Rahul Dravid was appointed as head coach towards the end of 2021. The Rohit-Dravid combination was expected to lift Team India to greater heights, building on the commendable work done by the Kohli-Ravi Shastri combo as captain and coach.

With just a few days left until the end of 2022, though, Indian cricket seems to have taken some steps in the backward direction. From team selection to strategy and fitness to frequent experiments, most things that Team India have tried with Rohit and Dravid at the helm have backfired.

As the year draws to a close, we go into rewind mode, only to conclude that 2022 has been a year of disappointments and controversies in Indian cricket.

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From Team India's loss in South Africa to defeat in Bangladesh and multi-nation shockers in between

India began 2022 by going down in South Africa in the Tests and ODIs. Pic: Getty Image

Team India ended 2021 on an ultimate high as they defeated South Africa by 113 runs in the first Test in Centurion. However, from the very first match of 2022, things began going wrong for India.

As they have often done in the past, they failed to build on their early advantage and went down in the Johannesburg and Cape Town Tests by the same margin of seven wickets. What began as the hope of a historic Test series triumph in South Africa ended in another major disappointment.

In a sense, the Test series loss in South Africa under Kohli set the tone for 2022 for Team India. With Rohit unavailable for the tour due to injury (another frequent occurrence this year), KL Rahul led an insipid Men in Blue in the ODIs. Unsurprisingly, India were blanked 3-0.

While they continued to register wins at home against the likes of West Indies and Sri Lanka, India regularly finished on the wrong side of the result in games of high significance. They lost the rescheduled Test in Birmingham against England, despite dominating for the majority of the match. The visitors did well to clinch the white-ball contests, but that was among the rare successes Team India tasted in an otherwise forgettable year.

They came up with disastrous performances in the two multi-nation events they featured in during the course of 2022. After an impressive start to their Asia Cup campaign, they failed to make the final, floundering in the Super 4 stage. Worse was to follow.

Like in the Asia Cup, the Men in Blue began the T20 World Cup with a terrific triumph over arch-rivals Pakistan. However, that was their only good performance in the tournament when it came to significant matches. They embarrassed themselves against South Africa in Perth as most of their batters, barring Suryakumar Yadav, were bounced out.

Still, thanks to them being placed in the easier of the Super 12 groups, they confirmed a semi-final berth. What transpired in Adelaide, though, would go down as one of the worst days in Indian cricket history. Team India were thumped by 10 wickets by England and dumped out of another World Cup.

The tragic story of Indian cricket in 2022 did not end there. If fans hoped for some respite against Bangladesh, they were in for another rude shock as the Men in Blue succumbed to their second successive bilateral ODI series loss in Bangladesh.

More potential bad news in store? Well, they still have two Tests in Bangladesh before the horror of 2022 comes to an end. Will it finish as it started? Only time will tell.

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Kohli's sacking saga, Ganguly's exit, rest, and unrest!

Virat Kohli was sacked as unceremoniously sacked as one-day by the selectors. Pic: Getty Images

One of the reasons why Indian cricket struggled on the field in 2022 is perhaps because they had an equally forgettable year off it as well. It all began with Kohli's saga of being sacked as ODI captain.

In an explosive press conference, the former skipper tore into the (Board of Control for Cricket in India) BCCI over his sacking as ODI captain without proper intimation. He then quit as Test captain after India’s serious loss in South Africa, raising further questions over whether everything was okay in Indian cricket.

There was another unexpected turn of events when Sourav Ganguly was asked to quit as BCCI chief after his tenure came to an end. Few saw this move coming, particularly after the cricket board had approached the court and got approval for an extension of the president and secretary’s stints. In came Roger Binny as the new chief of the world’s richest cricket board, even as Ganguly’s sacking took a political turn and became a full-fledged national-level controversy.

The Chetan Sharma-led selection committee itself was shown the door after Team India’s dismal showing in the T20 World Cup 2022. Under the panel, the Men in Blue lost two matches by a 10-wicket margin in subsequent T20 World Cups. From a lack of communication skills to an inability to pick a strong side, Sharma and co. were caned by critics for a number of reasons.

Team management also played a big role in the disintegration, playing the “resting” game. Cricketers were more out of the team than in during 2022 (barring the IPL of course!). Not everyone was out due to injury, unlike genuine cases like Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja. With no continuity, Team India never got into any sort of rhythm.

Ironically, despite the volume of breaks that were doled out like freebies during election campaigns, the Indian cricket team ends 2022 scampering to put together a team of fit players! Rather fittingly, then, 2022 will go down in history as Indian cricket’s Annus horribilis.

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