Australia cricket in 2023 : A year of glorious achievements

 

While we take stocks on various events of 2023 as we come to the end of another year , the way Australian cricket shaped up in 2023 was mind blowing . 

2023 has certainly been one of the greatest years of Australian cricket ever particularly from June onwards .  The year started with Australia winning their home test series vs South Africa which was on expected lines .  Then of course they had their disappointment in the Border Gavaskar series of 4 test matches in India losing it by 2-1 and thus failing in their quest of conquering their final frontier .  However that one test win at Indore confirmed their final spot for the World test Championship vs India . 

The turnaround started when Australia beat India in 3 match ODI series by 2-1  giving them the belief for the world cup later in the year . 

The World test Championship final was held at the Oval London and Australia played outstanding cricket in another final beating India by 209 runs to win the World test Championship for 2021-23 cycle . Travis Head (163) and Steve Smith (121) ensured that Australia get a big first innings score and then the bowlers combined to get the strong Indian batting lineup rattled in both the innings to finally win the coveted title . 

The Ashes series that followed proved to be a humdinger . Australia opened the series with a sensational 1st test win from a losing situation with Pat Cummins(44*) and Nathan Lyon hijacking the match from England to take the series lead .  Australia survived a late Ben Stokes charge to win the second test and go two up in the series and thus their dream of winning their first Ashes in England since 2001 looked very bright . However the loss of Nathan Lyon due to a  injury for the rest of the series hampered their chances and England clawed back to win 2 of the remaining 3 tests to square the series abd thus Australia and Cummins' dream of winning the 1st Ashes in England in 22 years remained unfulfilled . However by the virtue of winning the previous Ashes in Australia, the tourists was able to retain the Ashes which itself was a big achievement. 

Then came the South African white ball series which the Aussies used for experimentation and thus lost 3-2 . They also lost another bilateral ODI series in India 2-1 but the focus was largely on world cup preparations .

The World cup 2023 was held in India during October - November . Australia started poorly with back to back losses to India and South Africa.   However they started to turn things around from the Sri Lankan match winning that by 5 wickets and then won a high scoring match vs Pakistan by 62 runs to get them on their way.

Travis Head had a fractured hand in South Africa and his world cup playing dreams looked shattered but the Australia selectors punted with him by keeping him in the squad  and finally a fit Head played his first World cup match vs a strong New Zealand.  Head scored a dazzling 100 vs New Zealand as Australia won a thriller by 5 runs . Australia next went on to beat England in another gripping match by 33 runs and after their wins over Netherlands and Bangladesh they fixed up their semi final date with South Africa at Kolkata. 

Another brilliant game for Travis Head (62 runs, 1 wicket ) helped Australia to overcome a strong South Africa challenge at Eden Gardens in a low scoring thriller by 3 wickets . Fully charged after winning the semis , Australia put up a stellar performance vs overwhelming favourites India in the final at the gigantic Ahmedabad stadium  to win by 6 wickets as Travis Head  again proved India's tormentor after the WTC final with a dazzling match winning kjock of 137 to get the player of the match in both semis and Final .

Thus Australia won their 6th World cup title and it was a proud moment for Pat Cummins and their boys . Winning WTC final for the test Championships and then the world cup in the same year along with the retention of Ashes is not going to happen in the same year very often . 

Australia closed the year 2023 by winning their home  test series vs Pakistan by winning the first two tests to put the icing on the cake .

It has been largely a team performance by Australia in 2023 with Travis Head and Mitchell Marsh coming of age in batting across formats , Usman Khawaja performing brilliantly in test cricket across continents  and the bowling attack performing well in the most crucial times across formats . There have been a few disappointments like losing yet another test series in India and not able to win the Ashes series in England after taking a 2-0 lead but the big wins have totally offset those scattered periods of mediocrity .

The women s team was not far behind either , Meg Lanning led Australia to yet another glorious T20I world cup win in South Africa in February.  Australia beat South Africa in the final after surviving a scare from India in the semis winning by only 5 runs . Later they retained the  Ashes after a drawn  series in England  at 8-8 points in an exciting finish  .  They lost the one off of test to India but came back to capture the ODI series by taking an unassailable 2-0 lead after 1st two matches.

Meg Lanning also announced her retirement after a stellar 13 year career that included 7 world cup titles across formats