Top Sporting Events of the decade | Indian Sports Events
This decade saw an Olympic individual gold and the No.1 rank in Test cricket. Of course the controversies went hand in hand.
Indian sport : In early 2000 the match-fixing scam broke and the country’s cricket establishment went for a six. Well towards the end of 2009 India was declared top-ranked Test-playing nation. In the last 10 years, India has shown some extraordinary cricket. The obsession with the game lead to the Indian Premier League (IPL).
This decade lso saw other sports doing great. Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi have won multiple Grand Slam doubles titles with and without each other. In badminton, Saina Nehwal who look good to challenge the Chinese; in chess, Viswanathan Anand still rules; in wrestling and boxing also Indians are doing a good job. Abhinav Bindra won India its first individual Olympic gold medal.
2000: CRICKET MATCH FIXING
The Delhi police stumbled on a match-fixing scam that was to devastate the sport. South African captain Hansie Cronje, former India OD captain Mohammad Azharuddin and Pakistan’s captain Salim Malik were dragged into the controversy, apart from several others. And later Cronje died in a plane crash, Maliks ban has been lifted and Azhar has been elected as a member of Parliament.
2001: LAXMAN and DRAVID 376 partnership
V.V.S. Laxman and Rahul Dravid created a history in cricket world with a partnership of 376. Following on 274 runs behind Australia, India had lost four second innings wickets for 232 runs when these two came together to bat making India win by 171 runs. Laxman’s 281, since exceeded by Virender Sehwag’s two triple centuries, is still rated as the best innings by an Indian.
2001: Badminton - ALL ENGLAND TITLE won by GOPICHAND
Pullela Gopichand beat Chinese Chen Hong 15-12, 15-6 winning the All England Open Badminton Championships. For 21 years since Prakash Padukone had won this first, India’s players had a tough time in the global scene. Gopichand proved to be a man of principles when he refused a lucrative offer to endorse a soft drink.
2005: CHAPPELL Vs GANGULY
Greg Chappell’s emailed the Board of Control for Cricket in India to complain about the captain Sourav Ganguly was talked about not just for its content, but also its length (2,606 words). Differences between the coach and captain culminated into a major controversy on the tour of Zimbabwe when Ganguly alleged publicly that Chappell had asked him to step down. Chappell responded with his most talked about email. By the end of the year, Ganguly lost his job and so did Chappell soon after that.
2007: Chess - ANAND - The WORLD CHAMPION
Forty years old Anand is still the king of the chessboard and India’s most enduring sports champion. Anand has won almost every title along the way since he first started attracting attention 26 years ago. The peak point of Anand’s career came in Mexico in September 2007 when he won the title. He had first won the FIDE (World Chess Federation) title in 2000.
2007: Cricket India became T20 WORLD CHAMPIONS
MS Dhoni took his young team to South Africa for the inaugural Twenty20 (T20) world championship without Sachin Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly, Laxman and Anil Kumble. Earlier India had failed to qualify the first round in the World Cup.
T20 was not taken seriously. Nobody thought Dhoni’s team will be the world Champion. Yuvraj Singh’s innings against England which included six sixes in an over, was one of many fine performances by a team of ambitious youngsters playing under an inspiring captain who won the title changing the future of Indian cricket forever.
Inspired from American pro sports leagues, the IPL was assembled together by Lalit Modi to stymie the rival Indian Cricket League. Modi brought showbiz and big business to cricket. Team franchises were created for millions of dollars and players were auctioned for mega amounts. By the second tournament, the IPL had become the sixth most valued property in international sport.
2008: BINDRA winning GOLD IN BEIJING
Finally the gold medal at the Olympics broke a jinx that had lasted more than a century. The young shooter from Chandigarh hit the bullseye in the 10m air rifle event wining India the gold medal. Bindra’s achievement inspired a couple of other young athletes to excel. Boxer Vijender Singh and wrestler Sushil Kumar both won bronze medals.
2009: World Professional Billiards Championship - ADVANI WON WORLD PRO TITLE
Indian Billiards Champions are Wilson Jones, Michael Ferreira, Geet Sethi, Om Agarwal, Yasin Merchant, to name a few. But Pankaj Advani’s achievements are big enough to suggest that he might be the best ever.
In September, he won the World Professional Billiards Championship in Leeds to cap S a wonderful run of successes beginning with the Karnataka State Junior snooker championship in 1997, when he was only 12.
2005/2009: HYDERABAD GIRLS - Sania Mirza and Nehwal
After P.T. Usha singed the tracks in the 1980s no other sportswomen captured attention of the nation. But Sania Mirza and Nehwal, the girls from Hyderabad did. Mirza took the country by storm in 2005 when she reached the third round of the Australian Open and the fourth round in the US Open.
Her aggressive strokeplay and glamorous personality made her the most popular sports person. Nehwal became national champion in 2007 when only 17 and has taken rapid strides since then.At the 2008 Olympics, she TYL reached the quarter-finals, and in 2009, she became the first Indian woman to win a Super Series event in Indonesia. Nehwal is currently ranked No. 6 in the world.
2009: NO. 1 TEST CRICKET NATION
India became the No. 1 ranked Test cricket nation in the DS world towards the end of the decade. This top ranking was the culmination of two years of deep strategizing and hard work by the whole team under Kumble and Dhoni. In 2008, India had beaten Australia, England, New Zealand (away) and Sri Lanka in successive series.
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