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It has been a fantastic year for cricket fans with some fabulous contests between bat and ball. And many of these fans took to Twitter to express their joys and frustrations. Here’s a collection of the best tweets in the year:
Sachin Tendulkar’s retirement
Sachin Tendulkar announced his retirement this year in October just ahead of the Test series against the West Indies. Incidentally, the 2nd and last Test of the series was his 200th Test as well. Only player to do so.
BCCI in partnership with Twitter India and Digigraph came up with a huge campaign ‘#ThankYouSachin’ which was a major success on the micro blogging site. The campaign provided digital signatures to the fans when anyone used to tweet to @BCCI with a #ThankYouSachin hashtag.
This picture of Tendulkar with the 22-yard strip will remain in every fans’ memory forever.
A pic of teary-eyed Tendulkar.
Sachin’s reply to his fans, which you can see generated more than 17,000 retweets.
Last but not the least, a tribute the great man.
Jacques Kallis’s retirement
Indian players with the guard of honour for Jacques Kallis
Jacques Kallis, one of the best all-rounder in cricket and probably the best of the lot. Kallis announced his retirement just before the 2nd Test against India at Durban. He scored a classy 115 against the Indian bowling attack on his last Test.
Here are some of the best tweets on King Kallis’s retirement:
Indian players forming a guard of honour for Kallis:
Now this is some stat:
Captain Graeme Smith with an emotional good bye in his last Test
A tweet on low turn out for Kallis’s last Test:
The Homework gate
Mickey Arthur and Shane Watson
The Australian tour of India was a forgettable one for the Aussies. India had taken 2-0 lead in the series and just before the 3rd Test, four Australian players – Shane Watson, James Pattinson, Mitchell Johnson and Usman Khawaja were banned for playing in the 3rd Test by the Australian management.
The controversial sequence was named #HomeworkGate by the tweeps after it was revealed that Australian coach then, Mickey Arthur had a fallout with the players after failing to submit a ’5 point dossier’ on ‘how to win the remaining two Tests’. Here are some of the best tweets on the controversy:
The 6th edition of the Indian Premier League
Mumbai Indians with the IPL trophy
This year’s IPL will be remembered for some blistering innings by Gayle, Miller, Watson and Suresh Raina to name a few. And some awesome catches by Ricky Ponting and Gurkeerat Singh. Mumbai Indians went on to win the tournament as Sachin Tendulkar received a fitting farewell from the IPL.
The ugly side of the IPL was exposed as 3 players from Rajasthan Royals were arrested by Delhi police for spot-fixing including Indian fast bowler S Sreesanth. In a separate case, Mumbai Police arrested Vindu Dara Singh and Gurunath Meiyappan for alleged betting and having links with bookies. Here are some of the best tweets on these events:
On Gayle’s 66 ball 175*:
On RP Singh’s last ball howler:
On the catches:
On Ricky Ponting, Sachin and Mumbai Indians’ win:
Virat Kohli’s miss:
On spot-fixing, illegal betting and ban:
ICC Champions Trophy
India after winnings the ICC Champions trophy
India won the final edition of the ICC Champions Trophy by beating England. Some brilliant performances from Shikhar Dhawan and Ravindra Jadeja stole the show as MS Dhoni became the only captain to win all the ICC major tournaments.
Here are some of the best tweets on the tournament:
The Ashes
Michael Clarke and Alastair Cook
Two Ashes series in 2013 paved way for some really good quality cricket and some on-field and off-field banter. When we saw some really good performances from both the sides, it was some of the antics which caught the most attention on twitter.
On the urine-gate at the Oval after England won the series:
On the DRS blunders, especially Usman Khawaja’s dismissal:
On Stuart Broad’s (not) walking incident:
Given the #royalbaby won’t be walking anytime soon… What are the odds he’ll be named after Stuart Broad? #Ashes @sportsbetcomau — Tim Hipsley (@TimHipsley) July 23, 2013
On Warner punching Joe Root controversy:
On Mitchell Johnson’s moustache and his brilliant performances throughout the year:
The plight of Ishant Sharma
Ishant Sharma
It was the 3rd ODI between India and Australia, the Aussies needed 44 runs off the last 18 deliveries. James Faulkner smashed 30 runs off Ishant Sharma’s over to tunr the match on its head as they went on to win by 4 wickets. Twitterverse were not amused and Ishant Sharma was made a butt of all the jokes nad humorous one liners on twitter:
The year of Shikhar Dhawan and Ravindra Jadeja
Shikhar Dhawan and Ravindra Jadeja
The duo of ‘Sir’ Ravindra Jadeja and Shikhar Dhawan had a terrific year. While Jadeja contributed with his bowling, stamped himself as a genuine all-rounder for India, Dhawan on the other hand played some really brilliant innings for India. Not to forget the moustache. #JadejaFacts trended in India for a some time:
Shikhar Dhawan was not far behind, thanks to his intimidating moustache and some innings which defined him:
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