Match-fixing scandal dominates

 ADELAIDE, Australia (AP) -- There was a world record win streak, a re-emergence of an old power, the launching of a new Test country and the demise of a once great side. But nothing that happened in the first year of the new Millennium shook the cricket world like the news that came from a brief news conference in New Delhi on Friday, April 7.

 The revelation that Indian police had tapped phone conversations between South African captain Hansie Cronje and an Indian bookmaker triggered shock waves of disbelief.

 From that dramatic moment, no taken wicket or dropped catch or run of Test victories was ever going to pull the spotlight away from a match-fixing scandal that implicated some of the biggest names in the game.

 By the end of the year, three Test captains -- Cronje, Salim Malik (Pakistan) and Mohammad Azharuddin (India) -- would be banned for life and become outcasts in a game which once lauded them as heroes.

 On the field, most Test teams either tread water or went backwards in 2000 but Australia galloped forward like a cavalry on the charge, trampling everything in its path on the way to a world record 13 successive Test wins.

 Seven of those wins were recorded in the calendar year as Steve Waugh climbed to greatness as a Test match leader.

 Test cricket also needs a strong English side and at last it seems this much-maligned outfit is on the rise.

 Apart from Australia, England was the only side to finish the year with a 50 per cent winning record with six wins from 12 games.

 Zimbabwean import Duncan Fletcher and ambitious Nasser Hussain have formed a hard-nosed coach-captain union and put some backbone back into English cricket.

 Its 1-0 win in Pakistan was England's most notable away Test result for a decade.

 Mike Atherton (990 runs at 45.50) regained his position among the world's best batsmen while Andrew Caddick (37 wickets at 26.43) and Darren Gough (48 at 24.00) benefited from a new contract system that spared them from much of county circuit grind.

 With just three wins from 12 matches, the richly talented Pakistan team was the underachiever of the year -- occasionally brilliant but most often spasmodic and never united.

 There was a bright spot though, when Inzamam-ul-Haq became the only batsman to score 1,000 runs (1,090 at 60.56 including four 100s) in the year.

 The West Indies continued its long slide from the top of the table into the lower levels of the test ranks with another poor year.

 West Indies was again lamentable on the road where its record stretched to 16 losses in the last 18 Tests and the sixth straight series defeat outside the Caribbean.

 West Indies' push for resurgence was marred by lack of leadership and the flagging fortunes of world record-holder Brian Lara, who quit as captain on the team's return from a disastrous tour of New Zealand and went into a self imposed exile.

 He consulted a New York therapist, who advised him to stay away from international cricket "until he recovered his passion for the game", and prompted widespread speculations that he was even considering retirement.

 Lara was talked into touring England but his presence had such little impact the West Indies crashed to a landmark series defeat, the first in 31 years.

 Curtly Ambrose, the evergreen fast bowler from Antigua, retired at the end of the tour and brought to an end one of the longest standing new ball partnerships in Test cricket with Courtney Walsh.

 With the Boxing Day Test left for the year, Walsh (13 matches) and Sri Lanka's spin wizard Muttiah Muralitharan (nine matches) finished the year as the top wicket-takers with 64 each.

 Zimbabwe, rocked by civil hostilities at home and the departure of key players Neil Johnson (South Africa) and Murray Goodwin (Australia), did not win a Test though Andrew Flower cemented his standing as Test cricket's most underrated batsman with 966 runs.

 Bangladesh became cricket's 10th Test nation and lost its only match against India but not until it had showed some fight that endorsed promotion.

 Australia, once again broke new ground by taking one-day cricket indoors for three matches against South Africa at Melbourne in August.

 The games made good money for Australia, were solidly attended, of a decent standard and there were whispers they may become an annual event.

 But it won't change the wider world in the way media magnate Kerry Packer revolutionized cricket in the early '70s.

 As South African cricket boss Ali Bacher said: "we've got enough to worry about putting money into the townships without worrying about putting roofs over our stadiums."

 Former World Cup winners Sri Lanka finished as the top one-day team of the year winning 75 per cent of its 21 internationals while South Africa's 25 wins from 41 games was the most by a side in the 130 matches played.

 Indian skipper Saurav Ganguly (1,579 with seven centuries) was the most successful batsman amongst the seven players who collected more than a 1,000 runs.

 Pakistani all-rounder Abdur Razzaq and South African Shaun Pollock shared the bowling honours with 61 wickets apiece from 38 matches each.

 Pollock, who replaced the disgraced Cronje as the Proteas' skipper, took six wickets in the final two one-day internationals of the year against Sri Lanka, to tie the Pakistani medium paceman.

 Canada registered its first-ever win in the Red Stripe Bowl tournament when it dispatched the United States by six wickets in October in Kingston, Jamaica.

 On a sad note, former Canadian captain Martin Prashad died in October after a lengthy illness. He was 42.