In the week that was, several athletes - some expected, some not have fired, for self or team, and impressed fans worldwide with their consummate skill and brilliant game.
Here are 5 sportsmen who have impressed us in the past week:
Novak Djokovic
He’s the danger man, the one player nobody is able to beat, no matter what the tournament. He’s swept a mammoth number of titles over his career so far.
Fresh off winning the title at Indian Wells, California, the first ATP Masters tournament of the year, Djokovic faced world No. 12 and rising talent Milos Raonic in the final and bageling him. In fact, Djokovic, the double reigning champion, only dropped a single set en route to the finals, against American rival Bjorn Fratangelo.
Only 3 months into the year, and Djokovic, playing at the Miami Masters, is also the two-time reigning champion here. Having received a first-round bye, Djokovic has beat both his competitors so far – Kyle Edmund and Joao Sousa – in easy straight sets.
Elsewhere, with Roger Federer struggling with injury and Djokovic’s Roland Garros nemesis, Stan Wawrinka, not finding his 2015 form this year, the path looks clear for Djokovic’s absolute dominantion to continue well into 2016.
Virat Kohli
He is fresh off that knock against Australia, a knock that took India from a difficult position to a win that rested slowly on the young Kohli’s shoulders. Australia had a rock-solid start to their innings, with openers Usman Khawaja and Aaron Finch taking the team to a quick 50 in 4 overs, and with a run rate of over 10 the men from down under looked set to post an unbeatable total.
They ended their innings perhaps 10 runs short of what they really needed, but with a considerable total nevertheless. Although India had confident beginnings, both openers - Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma – tumbled quickly, with India languishing below the required run rate and two wickets down with only 37 runs on the board.
And then the star shone. Virat Kohli came on to bat and all but changed the face of the game, putting on a 45-run partnership with Yuvraj Singh before an injured Yuvraj lost his wicket.
Now in a tough spot, India needed 67 off 36 – and Kohli well and truly stepped up to the plate. A 51-ball 82 comprised of 11 staggering boundaries took India across the finish line in a 6-wicket victory courtesy superstar Virat Kohli.
He has always drawn comparisons to Sachin Tendulkar, and in the wake of his match-transforming innings, these comparisons have only become louder and more frequent.
Nico Rosberg
2015 was a year of domination for Mercedes AMG Petronas, who won both the 2014 and 2015 Formula One seasons, as did their primary driver, Lewis Hamilton, with no team able to truly catch them up.
Other teams simply scrambled to catch up – quite unsuccessfully, and each acknowledged they could not.
This year, teams have shown a far more competitive grid than we have seen in a number of years, with nearly every engine quicker and more reliable than the 2015 season. Despite this, Mercedes dominated the first race of the season – the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park, Melbourne – but this time, it was Nico Rosberg – who took a late march towards the end of 2015 – who took top honours.
In fact, Ferrari could have won the race but eventually lost out on tyre strategy, perhaps down to the crew and team rather than the drivers.
In the much-ridiculed new qualifying format, it was Mercedes who again locked out the front row in qualifying - with Hamilton on pole and Rosberg in second, but with Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel taking the lead, Hamilton would fall back.
Vettel held the lead for the majority of the race – which had till then been Ferrari’s to lose – and lost time after a pitstop with Rosberg, who both times pitted just before Vettel, taking the lead and holding on to it.
LeBron James
A major portion of last week was headlined by LeBron James’ off-court drama. It involved unfollowing the official Twitter account of the Cleveland Cavaliers and then re-following them within a day. What made fans more suspicious was his failure to answer appropriately when asked about his actions by a reporter in a post-game interview.
Many analysts and past NBA players have criticized LeBron James for such behavior, calling it unnecessary and wrong as the leader of his team. However questionable his off-court actions were, James remained silent in front of the media and let his game to all the talking.
With week averages of 29 points, 8.5 rebounds and 8.5 assists, he led his Cavaliers to a 3-1 record this past week. Those numbers also helped him earn the NBA Eastern Conference Player of the Week award. Of the week’s four games, James had triple doubles in two of those after registering just one in the previous 66 games of the season.
Even in the game that Cleveland did lose in the past week against the Brooklyn Nets, James had numbers of 30 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists on 81.3% shooting. He is without doubt the NBA’s best player over the past week.
Mustafizur Rahman
All of 20 years old, the Bangladeshi bowler has impressed since his 2015 debut. He has really come into his own at the ICC T20 World Cup, with brilliant figures last week. He’s taken 9 wickets at the tournament so far, seven of those in the past week.
With Bangladesh playing against two much stronger teams this week – the second of those against table-toppers New Zealand, the fast bowler picked up a fifer– giving away only 22 runs in the process. His off-cutters have stymied many a batsman, even those far more experienced than himself, and he uses pitch conditions to immense advantage.
Although his five-wicket haul against New Zealand went in vain, with Bangladesh’s batsmen failing to fire, Mustafizur impressed across the board. His team may now be out of the tournament, but the loose-wristed youngster has put himself firmly on the international cricket radar with his performance this week.
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