The Ranji champions had everything going for them as Karnataka completely outplayed Rest of India to win the match by an innings and 222 runs and lift the Irani Cup as well. That made way for the IPL auctions as team owners bid their way to build their squads. Yuvraj Singh, who also made it into the WT20 squad, was the biggest buy at 14 crore (Royal Challengers Bangalore).
As England decided to rebuild their team without the services of Kevin Pietersen, he was forced into retirement. That meant that he had no international duty, making him available for the entire IPL season. He was duly picked up by Delhi Daredevils for 9 crore.
After their win in the first Test, Sri Lanka followed it up with a draw against Bangladesh in the second Test to take the series. They thoroughly dominated the shorter formats of the game, winning both the T20s and all three ODIs as well.
Talking about dominance, South Africa and Australia took it in turns over two Tests. Australia outplayed South Africa at Centurion to win by 281 runs, but South Africa came back strongly registering a victory by 231 runs at Port Elizabeth.
Staying with South Africa, the seniors might be tagged chokers, but the under-19s had no such problems as they defeated Pakistan U-19 in the final to remain unbeaten in the tournament and lift their maiden ICC Under-19 World Cup title. The Indian colts, defending champions, lost in the quarter-finals and eventually finished fifth.
As for India’s seniors, after losing the first Test against New Zealand at Auckland by 40 runs, they dominated the opening proceedings at Wellington. Staring at defeat, captain Brendon McCullum, who became the first Kiwi to score a triple-hundred, wicketkeeper B J Watling and debutant Jimmy Neesham fought it out admirably to take them to a position of strength and force a draw, a result that seemed unlikely. That meant that India finished the tour without a win before heading to Bangladesh for the Asia Cup. The stakes for the already high-pressure India-Pakistan fixture was raised higher as both sides registered a win and a loss in their first two matches.
