Cricba

      I t started with New Zealand followed by England and Bangladesh and ended with Australia. India dominated in all departments and overplayed all the opponents.             Bangladesh earned more experience, Aussies put on a good fight but the other two surrendered completely when it came to Indian subcontinent.      India played three test match series with New Zealand and swept them cleanly, thanks to good shows by skipper Virat and spin duo of Ashwin and Jadeja who were the top performers. Then it came to  much awaited encounter with England. India beat England 4-0 in a five match test series, again skipper played some good knocks and bowlers doing the rest. Hosts beat their next guest Bangladesh with no difficulty. And then visited Kangaroos who surprised the hosts by winning the opening encounter but India recovered well and ended the series with figures of 2-1. The surprising thing was that skipper Virat Kohli completely failed with the scores of 0, 13, 12, 15 a

    With some good & match-winning knocks on a row in domestic cricket i.e. Vijay Hazare Trophy which ultimately took his team to the winning side, Dinesh Karthik once again ready to upset the current spot-holders of wicketkeeper-batsman in the national side.            About 10 years back Karthik was a regular in the national team in all three formats but a sudden rise of Dhoni and lack in performance costed him the spot.    The position for the wicket-keeper was not vacant for the next decade but Karthik managed to return in the team as a middle-order batsman many times during these years but couldn't hold on for a long.         Now Karthik is ready once again but no position of team seems vacant at this time. If we look at the team now we have Parthiv and Naman Ojha already reserved in tests for Saha and in limited overs until MS calls it off there is no position and not to forget the young boys Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson who will be the first choices.  

                   After getting the status of a test-playing-nation in 2000, Bangladesh have improved themselves in all the formats and in all disciplines. They have produced the quality players during these years.          Bangladesh took 18 tests to beat Sri Lanka and complete their 4th away win but more interestingly they won their 100th test. This is important as every team tries to make these events memorable and opposition also tries to debar them from achieving that.              Bangladesh won their first test match in 2005 when they beat Zimbabwe since then they won eight more tests but among these they have won 2 from West Indies and one each from England and Sri Lanka recently. They have the quality players in the form of ICCs top ranked all-rounder Shakib al Hasan and wicket-keeper batsman Mushfiqur Rahim, They have the attacking openers in the form of Tamim and Soumya Sarkar and a bunch of quality bowlers like Mustfizur, Taskin, Rubel H