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The Punter And His Team Scale the Peak
Its Australia all the way at CEAT Cricket Ratings
2002-03
Sachin, Harbhajan & Sehwag keep Indian flag flying
high
Mumbai, 14th April 2003: It’s
the last fortnight of the CEAT Cricket Year
of 2002-03. Chris Gayle leads the CEAT Cricket
Rating with 93 points. Only two points behind
him is Rahul Dravid. However, both players are no longer
in the race with Gayle having been dropped from the
West Indian team for the first two Tests against the
West Indies and Dravid having withdrawn from the Indian
team for the TVS Cup in Dhaka. The battle for the top
spot is now between three men; South African Herschelle
Gibbs, Indian Virender Sehwag and Australian Ricky Ponting,
who are ranked third, fourth and fifth in the CEAT Cricket
Rating with 89,88 and 87 points respectively.
30th April 2003: Ricky
‘Punter’ Ponting, Australia’s leading
batsman and one-day captain, adheres to the Australian
penchant for delivering the knockout punch.
Ponting’s innings of 117 in the
first Test against the Windies gave him seven points
and the no. 1 position in the Rating. He cemented his
status as the Numero Uno with 206 in the second Test,
and finished the CEAT Year with a tally of 105 points.
He is the first Australian to become the CEAT
Cricket Rating International Cricketer of the Year
since the inception of the Rating in 1995-96.
Ponting is joined at the top by his
team whom he led to World Cup success in South Africa
in March 2003. ‘Team Australia’, the reigning
Test and limited-overs champions, have become the CEAT
Rating International Team of the Year with
145 points. They are a clear 45 points ahead of runners-up
South Africa, thus proving that the gap between them
and the other cricketing nations is as wide as ever.
It is the fourth time that the Aussies have topped the
Rating after 1997-98, 1999-00 and 2001-02.
In the middle of the CEAT Year, Ponting
scored two centuries and played a stellar role in Australia’s
3-0 thrashing of Pakistan in an ‘away’ Test
series. He scored two more in the Ashes series in which
Australia beat their traditional rivals 4-1. He then
led Australia to victory in the triangular VB series
against England and Sri Lanka and scored a hundred apiece
against both sides. In the World Cup, the Aussies were
on the rampage, as was their skipper. Ponting scored
a fighting 53 in the first encounter against Pakistan.
His side won all six league matches and began the Super
Sixes with a win over Sri Lanka in which Ponting amassed
114. He and his side reserved their best, however, for
the biggest game of them all. In the summit clash, Ponting
pulverised India to score 140 and his team ran up an
imposing score of 359-2 to seal the game at the halfway
stage itself.
After retaining the World Cup, the awesome
Aussies proceeded to retain the Frank Worrell Trophy
by winning the first two Tests of the four-match series
in the West Indies. One of the chief architects of the
wins was Ponting, who notched up triple-figure knocks
in both games. Besides topping the overall Rating, Ponting
also topped the CEAT Batsmen table with 97 batting points.
India, now officially the ‘second-best’
one-day side in the world, fared much better in 2002-03
than in previous CEAT Years. The Indians finished
third in the Team Rating with 88 points. Their
significant achievements of the year were the first
Test win on English soil since 1986, the victory in
the ICC Champions Trophy, a series win over the West
Indies and of course, the runner-up spot in the World
Cup.
An Indian who did make it to the top
is Sachin Tendulkar, the ‘Man
of the World Cup’. His record aggregate of 673
runs from eleven matches enabled him to top the CEAT
World Cup Rating with 27 points. The CEAT Bowling
and Fielding Rating for the year were topped by Sachin’s
teammates Harbhajan Singh and Virender Sehwag with 62
bowling points and 11 fielding points respectively.
Following is a list of the main award-categories
and the corresponding winners:
Ricky Ponting, Sachin Tendulkar and the others will
receive their respective awards at the 8th Annual CEAT
International Cricket Awards Ceremony that
will be held later this year. Speaking about the winners
and the CEAT Cricket Rating, Mr. Sanjay Manjrekar, former
India Test cricketer and Executive Director, CEAT Cricket
Rating said, "As an Indian, itis nice to note that
there have been two Indian CEAT International Cricketers
of the Year so far. Venkatesh Prasad in 1996-97 and
SOurav Ganguly in 1999-00, But the Indian Team was ranked
seventh and sixth respectively in those year. This year,
there is no Indian at the top but the tam has achieved
its highest-ever ranking, 'Third'. Well, Indian Cricket
is doing just fine!".
The annual CEAT Cricket
Rating was the first rating system for international
cricket that actually rewarded the topper on an annual
basis. It takes into account all international cricket
played between 1st May and 30th April. The CEAT Cricket
Rating International Cricketer of the Year Award has
been won in the past by Brian Lara (1995-96), Venkatesh
Prasad (1996-97), Sanath Jayasuriya (1997-98), Jacques
Kallis (1998-99), Sourav Ganguly (1999-00) and Muttiah
Muralitharan (2000-01 and 2001-02). Winners of the CEAT
Cricket Rating International Team of the Year Award
since its inception in 1996-97 are Pakistan (1996-97),
South Africa (1998-99 and 2000-01) and Australia (1997-98,1999-00,
2001-02).
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