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Line & Length's Guide to the Noughties: 2002

Continuing our series of retrospectives on the past decade. Andy Flower has pretty much sewn up your nomination for player of 2000. You can read the review of 2001 here, where the leading player in the poll is VVS Laxman, with Flower and Matthew Hayden on his heels. Vote on the player of 2002 at the foot of this post.

2002

The year in summary: England: Having lost their winter Test series to India 1-0 before Christmas 2001, England began 2002 with a thrilling one-day series. The first three matches were nip and tuck, but when Shewag and Tendulkar put on 134 for the first wicket in 17 overs in the third game on their way to a hefty win and a 3-1 series lead, a thrashing seemed on the cards. But England won the remaining two games by two runs and five runs to level the series. Flintoff took off his shirt and twirled it in celebration, the Indian politicians who had insisted on a sixth match being added to make extra money looked a bit glum.

From there England went on to New Zealand. In the first Test, Thorpe (200) and Flintoff (137) put on 281 in 51 overs to set New Zealand 550 to win, but Nathan Astle, with 222, caused a few flutters before his side were dismissed 99 runs short. The first day of the second Test was rained off, but England again took the advantage. New Zealand, set 356 to win or 84 overs to draw, dug in and made only 158-4 by the close. They won the third Test, however, a low-scoring match that was overshadowed by the funeral of Ben Hollioake, the former England player, who had been killed in a car crash in Australia during the second Test at the age of 24.

Sri Lanka were the first tourists of the summer, having been granted their first full three-Test tour, and were on a roll coming into the first match with nine straight wins under their belt. They made England follow on at Lord's, but the home side passed 500 in their second knock to secure a draw and then won the next two Tests by an innings and ten wickets to put them in fine spirits heading into the second series of the summer against India.

That became an epic battle between Michael Vaughan, left, and Rahul Dravid for batting supremacy. Vaughan made three hundreds - two of them a handful of runs shy of 200 - while Dravid's final three innings were 115, 148 and 217. They weren't the only successful batsmen: Tendulkar, Hussain, Ganguly and Stewart all averaged above 50 and even John Crawley scored a hundred. England seemed India-mad during the series, with colourful Indian festivals in the parks and the premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Bombay Dreams. A 1-1 draw satisfied everyone.

With Flintoff coming into his prime and young guns like Hoggard, Tudor and Jones emerging, hopes were high for that year's Ashes. Alas, Hussain put Australia in at the Gabba, where they reached 364 for two to make his decision look a little strange. England went 1-0 down when they were bowled out for 79. That became 3-0 after two innings defeats in the next matches and the Ashes were lost with December only a day old. Australia made it 4-0 in the Boxing Day Test at the MCG, where the only consolation was Michael Vaughan making his sixth hundred of the year.

World: The year began for the rest of the world with Muttiah Muralitharan taking nine wickets in an innings and he could have taken all ten if Chaminda Vaas hadn't dismissed the last man. It was only against Zimbabwe, however. Murali had four more five-fors that year, but three were against Zimbabwe again and Bangladesh.

Australia were again the dominant side in Test cricket, winning ten matches out of 11, five by an innings and one by ten wickets. Their only defeat came at Durban, where South Africa chased 335 to win. Mark Boucher hit the winning runs with a six. The Proteas went on a six-game winning streak after that, but their year was soured slightly by the death of Hansie Cronje, their former captain, in a plane crash at the age of 32, two years after admitting he had taken bribes.

Pakistan had a real up and down year. They won seven and lost five Tests but the closest match was a 41-run loss to Australia on neutral soil in Colombo. They had a lot of neutral matches with their own country ruled unsafe so soon after 9/11. They beat the West Indies heavily twice in Sharjah, but lost just as heavily at the same ground to Australia. Inzamam-ul-Haq made the year's highest score with 329 against New Zealand in Lahore, one of only two Tests played in Pakistan, and Shoaib Akhtar took six for 11 as the Kiwis' followed on 570 runs behind.

Twelve teams competed in the Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka. The hosts and India were declared co-champions after the final was twice washed out.

Leading Test run-scorers Vaughan 1,481 runs @ 62; Tendulkar 1,392 @ 56; Dravid 1,357 @ 59; Hayden 1,160 @ 73; Chanderpaul 1,065 @ 66

Leading Test wicket-takers Warne 67 wickets at 20; Harbhajan 63 @ 23; Muralitharan 55 @ 18; Zaheer Khan 51 @ 29; Saqlain Mushtaq 51 @ 24

Received their first Test cap Stephen Harmison, left, Simon Jones, Rob Key (all Eng); Parthiv Patel (Ind); Iain Butler, Jacon Oram, Scott Styris (all NZ); Kamran Akmal (Pak); Andrew Hall, Ashwell Prince, Graeme Smith (all SA); Jehan Mubarak (SL); Ryan Hinds, Jermaine Lawson, Daren Powell (all WI); Mark Vermeulen (Zim)

Went off to the Great Pavilion in the Sky In addition to Hollioake and Cronje, cricket said goodbye to Fergie Gupta (Ind, aged 72), who was regarded by Everton Weekes as the greatest leg spinner there had been. His strike rate of a wicket every 70 balls was better than Shane Warne's after the same number of Tests (15, in which he took 85 wickets at an average of 23)

What also happened in 2002 The first euro notes and coins are distributed in 12 countries; the Queen Mother dies in the year of her daughter's Golden Jubilee; ice deposits found on Mars; US Congress passes resolution allowing invasion of Iraq

Vote below on your favourite player of 2002 (note: only on their feats that year)

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Larwood wins Bookie Prize

Posting has been light this week, for which I apologise. I'd like to say that I've been busy writing a bestselling book, but instead it has been the routine day job of editing a rugby sevens supplement and preparing a forthcoming Times sporting retrospective of the decade (published in a couple of weeks) that has eaten into my blogging.

Still, I have a spare couple of hours now so let's bash out some blogs beginning with a hearty congratulations to Duncan Hamilton, who this lunchtime won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award for his excellent biography of Harold Larwood.

I read this a couple of months ago and wrote a blog in praise of Hamilton's book, especially its revelations about Larwood's prodigious boozing. It is a warm-hearted, detailed but never boggy biog that should be on everyone's Christmas list.

This is the fourth cricket book to win the prize in the past 11 years. Marcus Trescothick's autobiography won last year to my slight surprise. It was sympathetic to a popular character with a terrible disease but comes some way down the list of great cricket books, unlike Peter Oborne's magnificent biography of Basil D'Oliveira, which won the prize in 2004. Derek Birley's A Social History of English Cricket, despite the bland title, is also one of my favourites and won the prize in 1999.

End these Indian bore draws

It is feasting time for fans of Test cricket this week. India are playing Sri Lanka; New Zealand are up against Pakistan and Australia begin what their fans expect (and the rest of the world fears) will be a massacre of West Indies at the Gabba on Thursday. For those who want their cricket in smaller bites, England's one-day series against South Africa continues on Friday.

If only all Tests could be like the one in Dunedin. New Zealand have reached stumps on Day 1 at 276 for six, not far off what I'd call the perfect opening day as far as the neutral cricket-lover is concerned, with a proper balance between bat and ball.

The runs were scored quickly enough (although ideally I'd like a team to pass 300 in 90 overs) and there are enough wickets down to suggest that there will be a result on the fourth or fifth day. With McCullum and Vettori, right, at the crease overnight we could be in for an exciting second morning. Pakistan could be batting before lunch tomorrow, or they could be facing a large follow-on target. It is, in short, a match that still has hope and offers the potential for excitement.

Alas, the second Test in Kanpur already seems to be heading for a draw. That's a ridiculous statement to make after only one day, of course, but Test matches in India are being played on such good batting wickets these days that it is easy to become pessimistic.

After the dire opening Test match in Ahmedabad - in which a wicket fell every 21 overs - the pitch in Kanpur looks just as unfriendly for bowlers. India have reached 417 for two in 90 overs and with the exception of Sehwag being dropped in the first over, there has been little to rouse the impartial viewer. Even if Sri Lanka were to collapse in their first innings, you'd lay even money on them following on and making 500 to save the game.

Such are the flat, grass-less pitches we get in India these days. This is the seventh time in the past eight Tests when the side batting first in India has made more than 400. (On the other occasion, England made 316). Back in April 2008 there was the oddity of India being shut out for 76 batting first by South Africa, but as the Proteas batted for 140 overs in their first knock and India lasted almost 100 overs second time out, that suggests it was a freak result. The three first-innings scores before that were 540, 626 and 616-5. Batting is simply too easy.

Watching batsmen hit boundary after boundary with ease is all well and good for a while, but it swiftly becomes boring. That's why I no longer play Stick Cricket. It just got dull. And the balls that Sehwag and Gambhir were hitting today didn't even come with flaming trails.

 

On the plus side, though: the bowling got so tame as the seamers proved ineffective that we had the delightful - and rare - sight of two batsmen wearing caps at the crease.

There are certain points of statistical interest to have come out of today: Gambhir and Sehwag put on 233 for the first wicket, their highest stand together, and passed 2,500 runs as a pair shortly before Sehwag's dismissal (at an average of 60), which puts them up there with the likes of Hutton/Washbrook, Hobbs/Rhodes and Lawry/Simpson.

Gambhir went on to make a hundred for the fourth Test in a row and now sits two behind Don Bradman's record. Rahul Dravid is on the verge of passing Allan Border's tallies for runs and hundreds. Sachin Tendulkar is only 80 away from his 44th Test hundred (should get there by lunch tomorrow, then).

But although I am as big a statto-geek as many of you, what I want most is a thrilling match. A Test should enter at least the third day (and ideally the fourth or fifth) with both sides in with a chance of winning. Yes, there is something to be admired in the concentration and application of batsmen building huge scores, but when eight men occupy the crease for three hours or more, as happened at Ahmedabad (a third of the total batsmen used), you do start to wonder whether playing with a tennis ball on a concrete playground would offer more of a challenge.

What is the solution? Many are calling for changes to the Laws that help the bowlers - perhaps relaxing the restriction on bouncers and amending the lbw rules, if not going the whole hog and adding a fourth stump - and the ICC has recently ruled that match referees can penalise sides that produce bland as well as spicy pitches.

We could return to uncovered pitches, of course, although that brings the problem of resuming a game swiftly after a rain delay. Personally, I wonder whether the ICC should consider bringing back timeless Tests.

Yes, that sounds counter-intuitive, but when people think of timeless Tests they only recall the dire matches that dragged on and on, largely with the help of the weather. Seventy years ago, the most famous timeless Test, between England and South Africa in Durban, was abandoned as a draw because the touring side had to go home. Nine years earlier, a Test in Kingston was abandoned after nine days for the same reason. Both those games had lost a couple of days to rain.

But while people remember the 1939 Durban Test as the last of the timeless games, the final Tests of the 1946-47 and the 1948 Ashes were scheduled to be timeless, in case a deadlock had to be broken. Six days, rather than five, were set aside for the earlier matches in each series, too. Yet they weren't needed.

Nor did many of the pre-war timeless Tests go beyond a fifth (or even a fourth) day. Knowing that it was not possible to bat out time for a draw, the batsmen's natural sense of frustration and a wish to get the game done quickly led to matches being concluded in regular time. Take away the draw and even the likes of Rahul Dravid will balk at mere crease-occupation for the sake of it.

But then we wouldn't have those thrilling draws, where batsmen are clinging on (like Monty and Jimmy at Cardiff) rather than playing out time. Perhaps we should simply cap the length of an innings at 150 overs? Any brighter ideas out there?

And before anyone makes a wise crack, yes I know that you could watch a whole Dravid innings in less time than it took to read (or write) this post...

Revolution's in the air

A wonderful letter in today's Times from Mr Francis Ingham, of Paddock Wood, Kent:

Sir, Lord's does indeed plan great changes to cricket (report Nov 18). The artist's impression of how the MCC ground will look in the future depicted 13 fielders. Change indeed.

Oh yes indeed, Mr Ingham. What is more, having just looked at the image myself to see if you were right, there also appears to be only one umpire, at the bowler's end. Either that or one of the fielders is really an umpire but is not wearing the same black trousers as his colleague. And that still leaves us one fielder in excess. Maybe he was bringing on some drinks?

This really is revolutionary. But on the bright side, at least we know that in the future, cricket will still be played be people wearing white, even if it is 13 a side.

Go third and multiply

Line & Length is not always the most optimistic of blogs (I am English after all) but I took heart from the top line given to a press release sent out by the ICC ahead of today's first one-day international.

"Clean sweep will send England to third place"

That was the headline. And while third best in the world may be a fairly modest ambition, it is interesting that the ICC chose to focus on this point. Not "3-2 win will lift England to fifth" or "Good series for Graeme Smith could see him become No 1 batsman" or even "5-0 win for Proteas will have them breathing right down Australia's neck in rankings". Any of them might have been more credible than predicting an England clean sweep.

Of course, being English, I'd have been more tempted to do a headline saying: "Heavy rain forecast could save England from 5-0 thrashing".

What is more interesting, I think, is that due to a vagary of the computer system, a 3-2 win for South Africa would not be enough to keep them in second place in the rankings. They will have to win 4-1 (or, if it rains today, 3-1) to keep making ground on Australia, else India will sneak ahead.

Line & Length's Guide to the Noughties: 2001

Continuing our series of retrospectives on the past decade. Read the entry for 2000 here, where Andy Flower leads Glenn McGrath by a nose in the vote for your favourite player of that year, and vote on the player of 2001 at the foot of this post.

Delighted to see that our last poll attracted votes from Romania and Belarus (both for Flower), Finland (Courtney Walsh) and Singapore (McGrath) as well as many other countries around the world. Welcome, everyone.

2001

The year in summary: England: Another familiar Ashes pasting is the main story of the summer. Steve Waugh's Australia need 31 days (11 of combat) to retain the Ashes, beginning with hundreds for Waugh, Martyn and Gilchrist in the opening Test innings. The one blip comes at Headingley where England chase 315 to win (Mark Butcher 173, left), having been 138 behind on first innings.

Australia also win the triangular NatWest one-day series, beating Pakistan in the final with a mere 23 overs unbowled. England retaliate by poaching Rod Marsh to lead the National Academy and pray that with an average age of 30, Australia have only a couple more series wins left. A sad end to Mike Atherton's playing career.

The year had begun with such promise: a fourth consecutive series win in their first full tour to Sri Lanka, despite losing the first Test by an innings and making a bit of a meal of chasing two smallish targets in the next two games. England also draw two-Test series with Pakistan. Yorkshire win the County Championship for the first time in 33 years.

World: The best and worst of India (but mainly the best). Australia extend winning streak to 16 Tests in Mumbai and look like making it 17 when they make India follow on 274 behind in Kolkata. Dravid and Laxman put on 376 and Harbhajan Singh, left, then takes 13 wickets to seal the most astounding fightback. He beats that with 15 wickets at Chennai in the third Test as India win by two wickets, taking the gloss off 203 by Hayden. Later that year Sehwag hits 105 on Test debut in Bloemfontein but in the same series India threaten to go home unless Mike Denness is removed as referee after he imposes penalties on six Indian players. ICC caves in, sacks Denness and the third Test is ruled as "unofficial".

Bangladesh draw their first Test (two days rained off in match v Zimbabwe). Brian Lara has scores of 178, 40, 74, 45, 221 and 130 in six innings against Sri Lanka, but West Indies lose the series 3-0, proving that they are just a one-man side.

Leading Test run-scorers Hayden 1391 runs @ 63; Lara 1151 @ 64; Gibbs 1124 @ 54; Kallis 1120 @ 70; Jayawardena 1053 @ 66

Leading Test wicket-takers Muralitharan 80 @ 21; McGrath 68 @ 22; Harbhajan 60 @ 26; Vaas 58 @ 23; Warne 58 @ 31 

Received their first Test cap Ryan Sidebottom, left, Ian Ward, Usman Afzaal, Jimmy Ormond, James Foster, Richard Dawson (all Eng); Simon Katich (Aus); Mohammad Ashraful, Enamul Haq (both Bang); Virender Sehwag (Ind); James Franklin, Shane Bond (both NZ); Mohammad Sami, Shoaib Malik (both Pak); Andre Nel, Justin Kemp (both SA); Thilan Samaraweera (SL); Tatenda Taibu (Zim)

Went off to the Great Pavilion in the Sky Don Bradman (Aus, 92), Alf Gover (Eng, 93), Bert Sutcliffe (NZ, 77), Pankaj Roy (Ind, 72), Peter Burge (Aus, 69), Roy Gilchrist (WI, 67), Shakoor Rana (Pak, 65)

What also happened in 2001 Wikipedia is launched, foot and mouth crisis in the UK, terrorist attacks on World Trade Center and Pentagon, war in Afghanistan begins

Vote below on your favourite player of the year (note: only on their feats that year) and share your favourite memories of 2001 by clicking on comments below

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An evening with Athers

Three months ago - gosh, was that all? - England won the Ashes at the Brit Oval, thanks to some brilliant bowling from Broad and Swann, a debut hundred by Trott and the second most memorable run-out of Ricky Ponting (sorry Freddie, Pratt still wins for me).

On December 7, you can relive those memories with a special Times evening at the ground where the Ashes were won in the company of Mike Atherton and Christopher Martin-Jenkins. Your blogger will be there to stop our two recent cricket correspondents fighting. Apply by clicking here.

Tickets are £32 and you get a free copy of Atherton's Ashes book. CMJ also has a book out - The Top 100 Cricketers of All Time (which scandalously does not include Ronnie Irani) - and if you want something cheaper and more fun, the ideal gift for Christmas, here's one final plug for the Line & Length Ashes book: The Best of Enemies.

Sponsoring Lord's

Hallelujah to the news that MCC is to reject a plan to name Lord's after a sponsor. Watching England play India in the ToffeeCrispStadium @Lord's.org would have just felt wrong. 

There is a certain poetry to the naming of cricket grounds. For more than a century, Test cricket has been played at Lord’s, Trent Bridge, Edgbaston and Old Trafford without the need to adorn the ground with a sponsor’s name.

Co-naming rights may have been signed for The Oval and Headingley - and how the addition of Brit and Carnegie grates - but nothing jarred quite as much as when the first Test of last summer’s Ashes series was staged at the SWALEC Stadium.

The problem was not that the match was played in Wales. It was that the ground used to have the far more attractive name of Sophia Gardens, until the South Wales electricity board bought a ten-year sponsorship deal in 2008 for £1.5 million. The only plus was the irony that it ambushed a series sponsored by npower, SWALEC's competitor.

Yet the original name for the Cardiff ground was itself a form of sponsorship. Sophia Gardens was named after the wife of the second Marquess of Bute, who arranged for land in Cardiff to be put aside for sport in the late 1800s.

For that matter, what was the naming of Lord's in 1787 but an early sponsorship deal? Thomas Lord was a Yorkshire wine merchant who had been approached by Lord Winchilsea, the patron of the Hambledon cricket club in Hampshire, to build a ground in London. Winchilsea said that Lord would be free to stick his own name on the ground as a reward.

Surely that was sponsorship. The only difference is that 200 years of tradition has given the name authenticity. Likewise, modern baseball fans could not imagine the Chicago Cubs playing at a ground named anything but Wrigley Field, although the stadium changed its name from Cubs Park in 1926 to satisfy a deal with the chewing-gum company.

If Winchilsea had sought sponsorship from Mr Johann Schweppe, a Swiss watchmaker who was setting up his carbonated water business at around the same time that Thos Lord was trading clarets, then Lord's may well have been called Schweppe's since 1787 - and as Schweppes was sold in 1999 to Coca-Cola it could have been labouring under an American fizzy sponsorship for the past decade. If only the Swiss liked cricket...

Dravid's longevity more impressive than Tendulkar's

Rahul Dravid got to 11,000 Test runs yesterday. I count myself fortunate that I saw the first 95 of them, when he almost made a hundred on Test debut at Lord's in 1996. I also saw him advance to 5,335 runs when he made a double hundred at the Oval in 2002.

There was deserved fuss about Sachin Tendulkar marking 20 years in Test cricket last weekend. Assuming he carries on playing into next year, he will have played cricket for India in four different decades, which in longevity terms is as notable an achievement as Gary Player winning majors in golf in three decades and Cliff Richard having a No 1 in five decades.

But while Dravid has notched a mere 13 years in the game, he sits only 1,777 runs behind Tendulkar. If Sachin were to stop playing tomorrow and Dravid carried on scoring runs at his career average, he would need another 17 Tests to become cricket's leading run-scorer (he'd need Ricky Ponting, on 11,345 runs, to stop as well, but let's overlook that) and would have overtaken Tendulkar in eight fewer Tests.

That Dravid has scored so many runs in about 60 per cent of the time that it took Tendulkar is testament in part to the increased amount of Test cricket played these days. But it is even more due to Dravid's astounding fitness.

From June 20, 1996, to the present Test with Sri Lanka, India have had 135 matches. Dravid has played in 134 of them. He missed one game in 2005 with a fever (thanks to Ranja and Praveen in comments) but otherwise has had no tweaked thingies, no sprained whatsits, no snuffles and coughs, no selectorial whims, no missing the bus, no disciplinary breaches, no excuses. Tendulkar, by contrast, has played in only 121 of those games. Even gods can have mortal moments.

Dravid's record of 93 straight games since his Test debut is remarkable, beaten only by Adam Gilchrist. His near-perfect 13-year streak compares with Cal Ripken, the baseball player, who went 17 seasons (and more than 2,500 games) without missing a match for the Baltimore Orioles. Allan Border is another one to note: he went 15 years without missing a game, although that wasn't from debut.

There has been some talk recently about whether Dravid has past it. I'm sure he would be the first to agree that he should be selected only on merit. Having made 177 yesterday, perhaps he has earned the right to hang around for a few more games.

Captain Cook

So, not quite the ideal start to Alastair Cook's tenure as England captain yesterday. He may be the first player to be groomed for the job arguably since Mike Atherton - although Vaughan and Flintoff both had some age-group captaincy experience - but it was not the happiest debut. South Africa made the second highest total in T20's brief international history, won with ease and then Cook was slapped with a match fine for England getting through their overs too slowly.

I'm on a work trip in France for a couple of days and, astoundingly, couldn't find anywhere showing the game yesterday, so I don't know what sort of captain Cook turned out to be. Did he appear in control or was it lots of hand-clapping in place of strategy and evil looks from Jimmy Anderson, who thinks he should have the job?

The ECB have been planning for this moment for some time. Three years ago Cook, who had captained England Under-19s (unlike Collingwood, Strauss, Hussain, Stewart or, of course, Pietersen) was invited to lunch and brainstorming with Mike Brearley, the model captain, at Lord's. He was also made captain of MCC, effectively an England A side, against the champion county in the season opener in 2007. Naming him vice-captain for this winter was a continuation of that plan.

But he has never captained his county, save in second XI cricket, and there is a big difference between discussing and doing. Part of the problem of him being selected for the senior side so early is that he never got the chance to lead an A tour. Experiences such as yesterday's match are therefore a good thing. So would be sending him to Bangladesh to lead a weakened England in Strauss's absence after Christmas.

In time Cook will probably take over the England captaincy on a full-time basis across all three formats of the game and I wish him every success. But be warned: the most famous English captain to be called Cook, despite having some success in Australia, ended up killed by restless natives on an overseas tour.

Line & Length's Guide to the Noughties: 2000

Starting today and appearing every four or five days, Line & Length goes all misty-eyed and looks back on the past decade of cricket. Who were the heroes and the villains, what were the best matches, who were the least likely international cricketers and who did we say goodbye to?

Also, every few days you get to vote on who was the greatest Test cricketer of each year culminating in a poll around the turn of the year to decide the best player of the Noughties. I've got my money on Ronnie Irani...

2000

The year in summary: England: After losing by an innings in Cape Town at the start of the year, England beat South Africa in Centurion by two wickets in a contrived run-chase after each side forfeited an innings. Has the whiff of corruption, but great fun.

A year after becoming the worst Test nation and with Duncan Fletcher as their new coach, England beat West Indies in a Test series for the first time in 31 years. They lost the first Test by an innings, won the second by two wickets after bowling out the Windies for 54 at Lord's, won the fourth by an innings after bowling out the Windies for 61 and then won at the Oval. Your blogger wins £300 from a £5 bet with Ladbrokes after betting that Nixon McLean, left, would be the Windies' leading batsman at 60-1 in the final Test. With 29 runs, he is.

England beat Zimbabwe 1-0 in two-Test series, bowling them out for 83 in first match. Surrey win Championship; Gloucestershire win three one-day trophies. That winter, England beat Pakistan 1-0, chasing 176 in 42 overs in the final Test to win after two draws. Graham Thope makes 64* in match that finishes in near darkness.

World: Bangladesh become tenth Test nation; they lose their first match to India by nine wickets. Hansie Cronje, left, sacked as SA captain for involvement in match-fixing. Mohammad Azharuddin banned for life by BCCI on same grounds. The likes of Alec Stewart, Mark Waugh and Brian Lara are investigated but cleared. Australia win eight Tests out of eight, taking their winning streak to 14 (it would end up at 16). Andy Flower makes 232* to save Test after Zimbabwe follow on against India in Nagpur (Tendulkar 201* in first innings). Glenn McGrath takes 6-17 in 20 overs vs West Indies at Brisbane. New Zealand beat India in final of Champions Trophy.

Leading Test run-scorers Inzamam-ul-Haq 1090 runs @ 61 average; A Flower 1045 @ 80; Atherton 990 @ 50; Yousuf 839 @ 49; Kallis 780 @ 49

Leading Test wicket-takers Muralitharan 75 wickets @ 20; Walsh 66 @ 19; Gough 48 @ 24; Pollock 42 @ 20; McGrath 39 @ 16

Received their first Test cap Chris Schofield, left, Matthew Hoggard, Marcus Trescothick (all Eng), Mohammad Kaif, Zaheer Khan (both Ind), Mark Richardson, Chris Martin (both NZ), Younus Khan, Danish Kaneria (both Pak), Neil McKenzie (SA), Kumar Sangakkara (SL), Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan (both WI)

Went off to the Great Pavilion in the Sky Brian Statham (Eng, 69), Colin Cowdrey (Eng, 67), EW Swanton (Eng, 92), Lala Amarnath (Ind, 88), Roy Fredericks (WI, 57)

What also happened in 2000 Millennium Bug doesn't happen, Dotcom bubble peaks, Harold Shipman convicted, India's population hits 1 billion, George W Bush becomes US president

Vote below on your favourite player of the year (note: only of the year) and share your favourite memories of 2000 by clicking on comments below

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Rain, beautiful rain

I was doing the Times Online commentary on yesterday's T20 international, when rain came along and spoilt what could have been a cracking finish.

Or, to look at it another way, rain added a thrilling random variable to an exciting game and ensured that one team would be cursing cruel fortune and another thinking they are loved by the gods. Much better that than it coming down to 13 needed off one over and the victory decided by mere skill.

I mentioned in the comms that it is a peculiarly English thing to be hoping for rain. An Australian would be desperate for the game to resume so that they could win on the field. A South African would be desperate for it not to rain because they can't deal with having more than one or two things to think about at any time.

Personally, rain is one of the beautiful things about cricket. A completely natural phenomenon that even the ICC cannot control, a reminder of our own futility and weakness before greater powers, a fascinating game-changer that turns sportsmen into meteorologists and gamblers. Footballers play on in the rain, tennis players resume when the rain finishes (even if that means delaying a game's conclusion by a day) but only in cricket does rain terminate a match.

And how wonderful that a game is then decided by maths and precedent and brainy people. It is the revenge of the geeks.

Speaking of which, some 20 years ago during a series of rather dull calculus lessons I developed an intricate game of calculator cricket, using the random number generator, that featured huge arrays of tables designed to replicate the changing fortunes of a Test. Most important among them was the rain table, which had to be consulted at the start of every "day".

I can't recall what probability I set for rain falling - it was probably too high - but I loved the thrill of grappling with chance and striking overs from the day's tally because the number had come up, increasing the chance of a draw. It beat Mr Crickmore's droning explanation about brackets, anyway.

The Walford Oval

"Are the EastEnders scriptwriters subliminally picking the England cricket team?"

It was an odd opening gambit, but Steve Pittard, a Line & Length reader, grabbed my attention, even if I haven't watched the London soap since Leslie Grantham was plugged by a gangster beside the canal. Steve based his argument on the fact that characters called Swann, Trott and Peterson have all been introduced in recent years.

So far, so coincidental. But then Steve pointed out other cricketing links in the naming of EastEnders characters: there is the mechanic Gary (Jack) Hobbs, the shopkeeper Patrick (Fred) Trueman, Pat (Godfrey) Evans, Pauline (Foxy) Fowler, Ricky (Mark) Butcher, Mo (Lord) Harris, Johnny (Gubby) Allen, Stacey (Michael) Slater - an excellent sledger of the "shut it you slag" variety, Steve notes - and Amira (Owais) Shah. Surprisingly, he missed out Grant (Tommy) Mitchell.

Steve adds that a few years ago there was a character called Keith Miller who was an illiterate workshy sponger and it is surely only a matter of time before a "Dirty" Don Bradman rocks up.

Even the EastEnders dogs are named after cricketers. There is Genghis (Imran) Khan, Little (Peter) Willey and, of course, Wellard, the dog owned by Robbie (Archie) Jackson and clearly named after Arthur Wellard, the former Somerset and England all-rounder.

This is beyond coincidence. Something clearly is up. I asked the BBC for their thoughts and after three days of deliberation (I can only assume that they took this matter all the way to the top: to Mark Thompson, the director-general, or maybe even as high as Wogan) they came back with this rather bland reply:

"We are delighted that EastEnders has so many links to the world of cricket. Maybe one of our scriptwriters is a secret fan and wants to bridge the gap between the Oval and Walford."

It's a cover-up, I say. Well you've been rumbled now, BBC. Better cancel those plans for bringing in Mr and Mrs Bopara to run the mini-mart.

Is Kallis the greatest?

Kevin Pietersen may be many things, but he is not into false flattery. When he says he rates someone, he means it.

And although he likes to make big statements, without the conditionals and weasel words of others, he usually has sound reason for what he says. There is always basis for the bluster.

But some may feel he has taken leave of his senses with the comment in his interview with Richard Hobson this morning:

 “I truly believe Jacques Kallis is the greatest cricketer ever."

Eyebrows duly raised? Let's leave out all the ancient cricketers who Pietersen may not even have considered - the Bradmans and Barneses and Trumpers and Hobbses. Let's even leave out players of more recent vintage who have dominated but perhaps slipped the infant Pietersen's attention when he was running about on the farm in Pietermaritzburg rather than watching TV - the Gavaskars, Richardses, Bothams and Soberses.

But is Kallis even the greatest of those to have played in the past decade? Is he better than Warne or Ponting or Tendulkar or Murali? Where does he sit in relation to Gilchrist or Lara or Kumble? Could Sehwag or Sangakkara or McGrath be rated higher?

Perhaps by posing these questions, it just reveals how blessed we have been to be watching cricket in the past decade. So many greats to choose from. And I'm not saying that Kallis doesn't deserve his place. He averages 55 in Test cricket, 45+ in ODIs and has 500 international wickets. He is a very very fine player. If only he had an English parent we'd have been in there and poached him...

But for Pietersen to say so definitively that he is the greatest? Well, have your say. And come back here later for the first part in a Line & Length special series on the Noughties.

Not our women too

We are used to the occasional crippling embarrassment from the England men's team, particularly in limited-overs games, but normally we can rely on the England women to keep trotting along, winning games without alarm or fanfare. Alas, our girls have also gone off the rails.

Charlotte Edwards's team are in St Kitts, playing limited-overs cricket with the West Indies, who had not been noted for their strength in women's cricket. Before this series, the West Indies had won three of their 33 international games against England, Australia, New Zealand and India, the big four of women's cricket. At the World Twenty20 last year, they lost heavily to the two antipodean sides and beat South Africa, who are really ropy in women's cricket, by four runs.

Yet something has changed. England lost the 50-over series 2-1 on Saturday, with defeats in the first and third matches by 40 runs and one wicket respectively. The latter was particularly disappointing as England had reduced West Indies to 66 for six, chasing 177.

The opening match of the Twenty20 series on Monday was just as frustrating. England made only 112 for eight, but West Indies collapsed from 91 for two before winning by four wickets with one ball in hand. Yesterday, the home side sealed their second series of the week with a five-wicket win in the second Twenty20 game.

England's batting was woeful again. Even the multiple initials of Ebony-Jewel Cora-Lee Rosamond Camellia Rainford-Brent, England's mouthful of an opening batsman, couldn't save them. They were dismissed for just 99 - 41 of them coming from Edwards's bat - and are clearly missing the calmness and experience of Claire Taylor and Sarah Taylor, who had decided to skip the tour. It does not bode well for England defending their World Twenty20 title in the Caribbean next May.

Swann + Swann + Swann = hope

Is it too late to clone Graeme Swann? OK, so that incessant chatter and playful mischief would get on your nerves after a while - a bit like when Calvin, of Hobbes fame, clones himself in Scientific Progress Goes Boink - but it would be useful to have more than one of him up our sleeves this winter.

England were bowled out for 89 by South Africa A in a Twenty20 game today. Alastair Cook made 22, although he took 13 overs to do it, but no one else showed up. When you are defending a tiny target like that the best you can do is chuck the ball to your most likely wicket-taker and hope that the oppo don't finish the game too early.

Paul Collingwood decided that Swann was the go-to guy. He was not disappointed. Swann bowled four overs and took two wickets for nine runs. South Africa A treated him with respect.

They may not have needed to take risks, but the fact they didn't try anything more than survival against Swann shows how much control he had. Let's hope that this is one of those indefinable positives that England like to take out of heavy defeats.

Closing in on a hundred

There are two barriers that have never been passed in Test cricket, but one may be broken in just over a year. No batsman who has played more than one innings has ended his career with an average over 100 and no player has lived to be 100.

None, in fact, have ever made it to 99 but in 38 days, God willing, Eric Tindill will become the first Test cricketer to get to within one of his century. At the weekend, the former New Zealand batsman became the longest-lived cricketer, passing the 98 years and 324 days of Francis MacKinnon, the 35th MacKinnon of MacKinnon as the chiefs of that clan are called.

I first wrote about "Snowy" Tindill on his 97th birthday and there is a good piece on him on Cricinfo today. As well as being the oldest Test cricketer, Tindill is also the oldest surviving international rugby player. He played for the All Blacks in 1935-36, his one international coming against England at Twickenham in which the immigrant Russian prince Alexander Obolensky scored two tries for the home side.

Tindill was the only man to have played Test cricket and rugby for New Zealand. He also refereed international rugby matches and stood as an umpire in a cricket Test - the double-double. While he is now the oldest Test cricketer, he has a bit longer to go before he is the oldest-lived international rugby player. Mac Henderson, a former Scotland No 8, died earlier this year at the age of 101 years and 309 days.

Only a northern song

Yorkshire may not trumpet its musical heritage as much as the Mancs and Scousers do on the other side of the Pennines, but several talented performers have come out of the county. And so did Mel B.

There's the Arctic Monkeys (Sheffield), Kaiser Chiefs (Leeds) and Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers (Rotherham). David Bowie's dad came from Doncaster, too.

Now the Yorkshire cricket team is looking for local bands and musical types to contribute to making the West Terrace a more tuneful place. The county want "talented unsigned Yorkshire bands to send in their music and become part of the club’s official soundtrack to the 2010 season".

Apparently, any genre will do, "from classical to rock, easy listening to indie, to reflect the highs and lows of a Yorkshire cricket season". Even if you don't win, all entrants will receive two free tickets to a Yorkshire match at Headingley Carnegie in 2010.

If you're interested, drop a CD to James Buttler, PR & Communications Manager, The Yorkshire County Cricket Club, Headingley Carnegie Stadium, St Michael’s Lane, Leeds, LS7 3BU or email comps@yorkshireccc.com.

This could be Hoggy's big chance. Give him a guitar and a ginger wig and the man from Pudsey could yet be playing at Headingley again next season.

A Broad outlook

Stuart Broad has an autobiography out. Yes, already. He may be only 23, but these publishers like to snare them early. Broad's book has been ghosted by the admirable Paul Newman, who last year did as good a job as he could with the raw materials offered by Alastair "Lively" Cook. It is rather picture-heavy (well, he has been playing for only two years) but is fairly entertaining.

I spoke to Broad recently before he departed for South Africa and wrote two pieces today for The Times on his fears that he he could be burnt out before he is 28 and on the strange superstitions and rituals that got England through the first Ashes Test in Cardiff.

Unlike Cook, an admirable batsman but as bland as the Times canteen's pea and ham soup when it comes to expressing opinions, Broad has a bit of spark to him. Not quite in the Swann/Pietersen/Bopara mould, but there was still plenty left in the notebook after I'd filled 1,400 words of today's paper. So here is what else he had to say...

On being hit for six sixes in an over by Yuvraj Singh in the 2007 World Twenty20 “I’ve not erased it from my mind. One of my friends sent me a text message after that happened saying 'Jeez he hit that well. You'll have to get an Ashes five-for now to regain your reputation'. Things happen for a reason and change the way you develop. I’m a lot less predictable as a bowler now."

On his fear of being dropped "It would have been very easy for the selectors to drop me after the Edgbaston Test in the Ashes but they showed faith and it paid off. I owe quite a few people a lot for that. If I was playing at the time my Dad was, I might have only played half a dozen games before being jetissoned. They are much better at identifying talent and nurturing it now."

On Ravi Bopara "What I have noticed is how often players go back to county cricket and perform right away after they have been dropped. We saw that with Ravi Bopara when he missed the last Ashes Test but made a double-hundred for Essex. It proves that he is better than county cricketers and that is why he is in the international set-up. He'll play for England again."

On "being Australian" "As a kid, I played a lot of garden cricket, England v Australia. My mate would always be England, so I'd be Australia. I'd open with Glenn McGrath then bring Warne on and try to bowl leg spin. I'm not a frustrated spinner, although when I'm bowling the 30th over of the day in the heat I wish I was one. I don't have the nous to be a spinner, you have to be very clever."

On Ottis Gibson, the England bowling coach "He has been a mentor of mine for a long time. When he was at Leicestershire, I played seven championship games with him. Every time he’d choose to bowl into the biggest gale, just to give me a chance to settle in. It is a great selfless attribute to have as a senior player. On my England debut Darren Gough was just the same. I hope I can be as selfless to younger players as I get older."

Singing Cockleys and Moises, alive-alive-oh

There has been some consternation among my Australian friends, who are staggered that Australia have chosen some groundsman called Burt Cockley to replace Moises Henriques in their one-day squad (he's being sent home to have that ingrowing 'i' in his name removed).

Cockley, a fast bowler whose main claim to fame is that he used to mow the grass at the North Sydney Oval, has played four list-A games for New South Wales. That's state games, not one-day internationals. He has taken five wickets, four of them on the pitch he used to tend last week. It is a bold selection.

Jarrod, a timid Victorian, suggests that there is a pro-NSW conspiracy, but I think there is another reason why the selectors summoned Burt. It's his name.

Say it. Burt Cockley. What image comes to mind when you say the words Burt Cockley? Well, he sounds like a gardener, for a start, but it is also not the name of a modern Australian cricketer. It is a throwback to another age. In fact, when I first saw a headline saying "Australia summon Burt Cockley", I assumed it was a link to an archive story from the 1930s. Players just aren't called Bert, let alone Burt, any more.

The Australian team used to be full of Burt Cockleys and similar evocative, solid, son-of-the-soil names. Clarrie Grimmett, Wally Grout, Hugh Trumble, Clem Hill, Bert Ironmonger, even the underplayed Hammy Love (which sounds like a bad production of Romeo and Juliet). All were splendid names for Australian cricketers. Even Don Bradman wasn't bad, although Donald would have been better.

Ideally, an Australian Test cricketer should sound like one of the more rural characters in The Archers. I'm surprised they never had a Walter Gabriel or an Eddie Grundy or Sid Perks.

Then came the 1990s and players with effete names like Shane and Ricky and Justin and Nathan. Good players, but embarrassing names. Australia lost something of their history when they started selecting Shanes. They won games, but it felt wrong.

Gradually the selectors are taking a stand against metrosexual names like Ricky and Nathan. Recent selections suggest a return to old-style names that sound like the pioneers who built Australia.

Brett Geeves, Clint McKay, Doug Bollinger, Callum Ferguson. All good old-fashioned names. If the selectors continue this trend, the next players to be called up will be three splendidly named Tasmanians: George Bailey, Tom Triffitt and Gerard Denton. They have the right names, even if the stats don't support them, to restore a sense of historical pride to Australia.

The only mystery - and one that Jarrod would agree with - is why in this climate of selecting players with old-fashioned names, Dirk Nannes, who sounds as 1890s frontier Australian as you could find, cannot get a look-in.