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In the fifth and final T20I between New Zealand and India that was played at Mount Maunganui, New Zealand on February 2, 2020, India won by 7 runs to complete a 5-0 series sweep.

The match saw Jasprit Bumrah bowl a wicket maiden, thereby becoming the bowler with the most number of maiden overs in T20 internationals history. The match also witnessed Shivam Dube concedes 34 runs in a single over, the second-most ever in T20I history.

Bowling the second over of the New Zealand innings, Jasprit Bumrah started off with a wicket maiden.

His first two balls to Martin Guptill were dot balls and Guptill was out LBW off the third ball. Tim Seifert, who came in as the one-down batsman, didn’t score a run off the remaining three deliveries in the over.

It was Bumrah’s seventh, maiden over in 50 T20 internationals, helping him break gis tie with Sri Lanka’s Nuwan Kulasekara, who has six maidens.

Bumrah gave away just 12 runs in his four overs in the match, picking up three wickets. He was declared as the player of the match for his efforts.

While Shivam Dube now has the ignominy of having conceded the second-most number of runs in a single over in T20Is, it is an Indian who hit a bowler for the maximum number of runs as well. The credit goes to Yuvraj Singh, who hit Stuart Broad for six sixes off a single over, for a total of 36! Yuvraj’s feat is even more special because he did it in a T20 World Cup game between India and England played at Durban in 2007.

Coming in to bowl the 10th over of the New Zealand innings, Shivam Dube was torn apart as the Kiwi batsmen scored four sixes and two fours in the over. A no ball in the fifth delivery of the over meant that Dube had to bowl an extra ball, rounding out a rather expensive over.

 

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A triple-double in basketball is a performance during which a player accumulates double-digit figures in three of the five statistical categories – points, assists, rebounds, steals and blocked shots – in a game. While most triple-doubles are based on points, assists and rebounds, it isn’t easy to achieve it, irrespective of the categories being considered.

It is therefore no wonder that only two players have produced triple-doubles against every single NBA franchise. And both of them did it this season.

LeBron James became the first player to have triple-doubles against every single franchise in the NBA when he posted a triple-double against Oklahoma City Thunder in November 2019. With four minutes remaining in the game, James made an assist to Anthony Davis and completed his triple-double. James finished with 25 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists in the game as the Los Angeles Lakers won 112-107.

It is no wonder that the triple-double that made Russell Westbrook the second person to have triple-doubles against all NBA teams also came against Oklahoma City Thunder, as he had spent his entire career with them before this season.

Playing now for Houston Rockets, Westbrook completed the set in January 2020, albeit in a losing cause. Westbrook’s 32 points, 11 rebounds and 12 assists against Thunder came in a 112-107 loss.

 

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Dinesh Karthik, Wasim Jaffer, Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar were India’s top four when they achieved this rare feat for the first time. Karthik scored his first Test century and finished with 129, Jaffer retired ill at 138, captain Dravid scored 129 as well and Tendulkar was unbeaten on 122.

After a combination of rain and wet grounds had forced the first Test between India and Bangladesh in the two-match series in 2007 to a draw, these hundreds put India on their way to victory in the match and the series.

After declaring their innings at 610 for three, India bundled out Bangladesh for 118 and 253 in their two innings to win the match by an innings and 239 runs.

Pakistan’s feat is unique due to the fact that this is the first time the top four batsmen of a side have scored centuries in the second innings of the same match.

The two-Test series between Pakistan and Sri Lanka in December 2019 marked the return of Test cricket to Pakistan for the first time since 2009. Like in the Bangladesh-India series of 2007, the first Test between Pakistan and Sri Lanka too ended in a draw owing to rains and wet conditions. Pakistan won the second Test and the series on the back of centuries from their top four in the second innings.

After bundling out Pakistan for 191, Sri Lanka took an 80-run first innings lead with a score of 271. But Pakistan’s top four ensured that they scored 555 for three declared in the second innings, paving the way for their 263-run victory as the Lankans were bowled out for 212.

 

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On December 18, 2019, in the second of three ODIs between India and West Indies that was played at Viskhapatnam, India dominated proceedings to win the game by 107 runs.

Kuldeep Yadav’s hat-trick and Rohit Sharma’s 159 were some of the highlights of the match, which saw a number of records take place.

Skippers Virat Kohli and Kieron Pollard got themselves an unwanted record. Kohli was out for a duck off his first ball, caught by Roston Chase off the bowling of Pollard. Pollard too went for a first-ball duck, caught by Rishabh Pant off the bowling of Mohammad Shami. This is the first time ever in ODI cricket when both captains have been dismissed for a golden duck (first-ball zero) in the same match.

In the 33rd over of West Indies’ innings, Kuldeep Yadav took a hat-trick, his second ODIs.

After having opener Shai Hope caught by Virat Kohli for 78 in the fourth ball of the over, he then had Jason Holder stumped off the next ball. He completed his hat-trick by dismissing Alzarri Joseph off the last ball of the over, caught by Kedar Jadhav. Kuldeep became the first Indian to take two ODI hat-tricks and in fact the first Indian to take multiple hat-tricks in international matches. He is the sixth player to have multiple ODI hat-tricks.

While Lasith Malinga has there, Wasim Akram, Saqlain Mushtaq, Chaminda Vaas and Trent Boult have two as well.

Rohit Sharma has made the highest individual score for India in ODIs in each of the last seven calendar years.

Rohit’s 159 was his seventh ODI hundred in 2019. Only four players have ever scored seven or more hundreds in the same calendar year. While Sachin Tendulkar heads the list with nine centuries in 1998, Sourav Ganguly (2000) and David Warner (2016) have also notched up seven centuries in a year.

Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant were part of the most productive over ever in India’s ODI history as they plundered 31 runs in the 47th over the innings, bowled by Roston Chase.

Iyer did the bulk of the damage as he hit 28 runs, while Pant scored a single. There were extras too in the over, to add insult to injury.

 

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From the past to the present, and with an eye on the future, we will try to look at different aspects of various events. We will traverse the highs and lows of sports, connect them, learn from them and understand them better.

On January 12, 2020, Manchester City defeated Aston Villa 6-1 in a Premier League fixture away at Villa Park. Sergio Aguero had a hat-trick in the game, accounting for three of the six goals City scored.

In the process, Argentine Aguero not only became the top-scoring overseas player in the Premier League, but also became the player with most Premier League hat-tricks, breaking his tie with Alan Shearer.

With goals in the 28th, 57th and 81st minutes in the away game against Aston Villa, Aguero took his tally of Premier League hat-tricks to 12, breaking his tie with Shearer. The first goal put him level with Henry as the overseas player with most Premier League goals and the second goal made the record his own. He has scored three more Premier League goals since his hat-trick, taking his tally to 180 goals so far.

England’s Alan Shearer heads the list of top-scoring Premier League players by some distance. Aguero, the only active Premier League player in the top 10, is currently fourth in the list, 80 goals behind Shearer’s tally of 260.

 

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Chess got itself an element of youth and cool in the last decade, as Norwegian chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen became a grandmaster at the age of 13. In 2010, at the age of 19, he became the youngest person to be ranked number one in the FIDE world rankings. Carlsen was also the youngest to have an Elo rating of over 2,800 and holds the record for achieving the highest ever rating in history – 2,882 in 2014.

By then, Carlsen had already become the World Chess Champion, having defeated India’s Viswanathan Anand in the 2013 World Chess Championship at Chennai. He defended his title, again against Anand, in 2014 and also added the 2014 World Rapid Championship and World Blitz Championship, becoming the first to hold all three titles at the same time.

Since then, Carlsen has defended his classical world title in 2016 (against Sergy Karjakin) and 2018 (Fabiano Caruana) and has also repeated his 2014 feat of holding all three chess titles simultaneously by winning the Rapid and Blitz titles in 2019 again.

 

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Saurabh Chaudhary, Manu Bhaker, Jitu Rai and Apurvi Chandela are some of the name of shooters who have led India to prominence in the last decade. The youngsters have joined with the senior pros to produce consistent results across tournaments. After winning two medals in shooting at the 2012 London Olympics and having come empty handed from Rio in 2016, the current crop of shooters offer us hope ahead of Tokyo 2020.

In terms of hockey, both the men’s and women’s teams are now ranked inside the top 10, but there hasn’t been a lot to boast through the decade. The Indian’s women’s team have managed to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the first time they have managed the feat after 36 years!

There were ups and down for kabaddi in the last 10 years. The birth of the Pro Kabaddi League in 2014 brought with it unprecedented viewership to the game, as it became a staple of the Indian TV viewers. The game’s growing popularity also meant that other countries picked up the sport well, as was evident in the 2018 Asian Games. Iran defeated India in the semi-final and went on to win the title, ending seven-time Asian Games champions India’s stranglehold of the event.

 

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It isn’t often that India has had a gymnast of repute to boast about. That changed in the last decade with Dipa Karmakar making her mark.

Karmakar rose to prominence when she won bronze at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, becoming the first Indian female gymnast to do so in the history of the games.

She also became India’s first female gymnast to participate at the Olympics when she did so at Rio 2016. She finished a commendable fourth in the Women’s Vault Gymnastics event at Rio. Karmakar is one among five women who have successfully landed the Produnova, considered one of the most difficult vaults in women’s artistic gymnastics.

Speaking of women gymnasts, American Simone Biles went where no one else has as she took her tally to 25 World medals, including 19 World gold medals, at the 2019 World Championships. She won four gold medals and a bronze at Rio 2016 as well and would be eager to add to her tally at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

 

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For a country of over a billion, getting on the medals tally at the Olympics has been a constant dream every four years.

While there was some success in that regard in the two Olympics that were held on the last decade, there is still a long way to go.

India’s contingent had 83 members for the 2012 London Olympics, the most for India at the games. That number was bettered for the 2016 Rio Olympics, when India’s contingent was 118-members strong.

We had six medals – two silvers and four bronze – to show for our efforts in 2012 and two medals – one silver and one bronze – in 2016. While Vijay Kumar (shooting) and Sushil Kumar (wrestling) won silver medals in 2012, Saina Nehwal (badminton), Mary Kom (boxing), Gagan Narang (shooting) and Yogeshwar Dutt (wrestling) won bronze medals. PV Sindhu’s silver in badminton and Sakshi Malik’s bronze in wrestling completed our haul in 2016.

Having won a bronze in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Sushil Kumar became India’s first multiple individual Olympics medalist when he won his silver in 2012.

 

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Eliud Kipchoge is a long-distance runner from Kenya. In the first decade of this century, he used to compete in the 5000 m event. He had decent success in it, winning bronze at 2004 Athens Olympics, silver in 2008 Beijing Olympics, apart from his gold and silver at the 2003 and 2007 World Championships.

In 2012, he switched to road running and took to the marathons. Since then, he has won 12 of the 13 marathons that he has competed in, coming second to Kenya’s Wilson Kipsang when he set the world record at the 2013 Berlin marathon.

Kipchoge won the 2016 Rio Olympics gold in the marathon and made the world record his own when he won the 2018 Berlin marathon in a time of 2 hours, 1 minute and 39 seconds.

He has also been involved in experimental runs over marathon distances without standard competition rules. While he clocked 2:00:25 at Monza in 2017 during one such attempt, he broke the mythical two-hour barrier in 2019, when he ran the distance in 1:59:40 at Vienna.

 

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It isn’t often that we are graced with an athlete like Usain Bolt. One of the greatest sprinters of all time, Bolt was the poster boy of athletics until his retirement in 2017. A showman and an endearing hero, the void left by his departure from the sport is difficult to fill.

Even though his world records in both the 100 m and 200 m sprints came in 2009, Bolt still had plenty to offer in the previous decade as well. He added the 100m, 200 m and 4x100 m gold medals from the 2012 London Olympics and 2016 Rio Olympics to the 100 m and 200 m golds he won at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He is therefore the only sprinter to have won the Olympics 100 m and 200 m titles at three Olympics, and it isn’t going to be an easy feat to replicate.

Apart from the Olympics, Bolt also dominated the scene at the World Championships that are held every two years, winning a record 11 gold medals, including eight in the last decade.

He chose the 2017 World Championships at London as his final event, but alas, it didn’t turn out to be a fairytale ending. He had to be content with a bronze in his last individual 100 m race. He opted out of the 200 m event and pulled up with a hamstring injury while running the anchor leg for Jamaica in the 4x100 m relay final, bringing the curtains down on a glorious career.

 

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Even though the previous decade wasn’t as good as the one before it for Mary Kom, she was still able to earn a lot of plaudits for women’s boxing in India. Mary was crowned World Amateur Boxing Championship in her weight category on four occasions in the first decade of this century – in 2002, 2005, 2006 and 2008. She added two more World Championships gold medals in the last decade, the first in 2010 and the most recent at New Delhi in 2018. In the process, she became the only woman to be crowned champion for a record six times.

Women’s boxing was included for the first time in Olympics in 2012 and Mary ensured she competed in London. She ended up with a bronze medal, losing out to eventual gold medalist Nicola Adams in the semi-final.

India’s only other boxer who has won a medal at the Olympics, Vijender Singh (won bronze in the 2008 Beijing Games) turned professional in 2015. He’s got an unbeaten 12-0 record with eight knockouts so far and it would be interesting to see how his career pans out.

 

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Winning a medal for the country at the Olympics is the covered prize many sportsmen dream of. Doing it once is great. Doing it again is even better. Doing it again and again over four different Olympics is almost unthinkable.

American Michael Phelps did the unthinkable by collecting medal after medal over four Olympics – 2004 Athens, 2008 Beijing, 2012 London and 2016 Rio. He finished with 28 medals in his Olympics swimming career – 23 gold, three silver and two bronze. That is more than what most countries have won through their Olympics history!

While the bulk of his victories did come in the first two editions that he participated in, he did win nine gold medals and three silver medals in the last decade. Considered by many as the greatest swimmer of all time, Phelps retired – for a second time – in 2016.

 

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If the men’s game has been dominated by the Big Three, Serena Williams has for decades now been the flag bearer for women’s single tennis. She’s 38-years-old and a mother now, but that hasn’t stopped her from winning titles.

Having won her first singles Grand Slam title at the 1999 US Open, she won her most recent major at the 2017 Australian Open, while she was pregnant! If you combine singles, doubles and mixed doubles Grand Slam titles that she has won, then her current tally is 39.

Twenty three of these are singles titles, as she continues her pursuit of Margaret Court’s all-time record of 24 Grand Slams.

When she won the Wimbledon title in 2015, she held all four majors at the same time for the second time in her career, becoming only the third player – after Rod Laver and Steffi Graf – to achieve the feat.

 

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If you have to name one team that truly owned the NBA in the last decade, then the question can be answered without any hesitation. For the Golden State Warriors truly had a golden era, dominating the sport and notching up titles.

They have reached the NBA Finals in each of the last five years, winning the title in 2015, 2017 and 2018. Along the way, they notched up the best regular season in NBA history, most wins (regular and postseason combined) in a season and the best postseason run as well.

Four of the five NBA Finals that Warriors competed in the last decade was against the Cleveland Cavaliers. In fact, the two franchises faced off in the final for four consecutive years a record in the NBA.

While Warriors hold the upper hand with respect to the results, having won three of those four finals, the Cavaliers too had something to cheer. The manner in which they won the 2016 title made it all the more remarkable. After trailing 3-1 in the seven-match NBA Finals series, the Cavs won the last three in a row, lifting the title in the process. It capped a remarkable comeback as the Cavaliers became the first team in NBA history to win the NBA Finals after trailing 3-1 after four games.

 

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