With the exception of a number of England victories in the middle of the year during the India tour of England, 2018 has been a great year of performances by Team India. The year started with a win by 124 runs against South Africa on February 7 during the India’s tour of South Africa.
The wins have continued with a number of victories in the 2018 Asia Cup, including a well-fought victory against Hong Kong and Pakistan. The stage is set for the Asia Cup final with India taking on Bangladesh for the summit clash on Friday.
With the end of the Asia Cup tour, the 2018 international cricket season comes to a close. However, there are still plenty of opportunities to watch Team India play cricket matches before the end of 2018. Matches will continue for India, right until February 10 2019, before a four-month interval until early June 2019. The final months of 2018 will be packed with cricket action, that will leave fans glue to their television screens.
West Indies tour of India 2018
Starting on October 4, and running all the way to November 11, the West Indies tour of India will include 9 matches. The matches will be held right across the country, including in Rajkot, Hyderabad, Guwahati, Pune, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. The last time the two teams met was in July 2017, during India’s tour of the West Indies.
The India tour of West Indies in 2017 included five One Day Internationals, and a Twenty20 International match. Team India will be looking to replicate the success of their One Day International matches, which they won 3-1 last time, although they were beaten by 9 wickets in the Twenty20 match.
The West Indies’ cricket team haven’t had quite the same level of success in 2018, although they have picked up a number of solid wins, including a 60 run victory against the United Arab Emirates, a 52 run victory against Ireland and a win against Sri Lanka by 226 runs. Overall, the West Indies’ cricket team has only beaten Team India in 19 per cent of its international test matches since 1948, therefore it’s pretty likely the 2017 performance will be in some way replicated.
India tour of Australia 2018
After a short break from the West Indies tour of India, Team India will head over to Australia for the 2018 India tour of Australia, which will begin on November 21. It will continue right the way through January 2019, with the final One Day International match taking place on January 18, 2019 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The 2017 Australia tour of India saw India win 4-1 in the One Day International matches, and the teams drew one-all in the Twenty20 matches. The third and final Twenty20 match was abandoned without a ball being bowled due to a water logged field.
India are strong contenders for the matches against Australia, who haven’t had the best of years, being beaten more times than not since March. Including beaten 6-0 in One Day International matches by England in June. This, despite Australia beating England earlier in the year during the Ashes tournament. Since 1947, whenever these two teams have met Australia has only won 27.65 per cent of its matches, meaning India are certainly favourites heading into this tour.
To conclude, whilst the official international cricket season comes to an end, there will be no rest for Team India – and its Men in Blue – right the way through to the end of the year. Two major cricket tours, containing both One Day International and Twenty20 matches, where India look set to be victorious based on both the performance of the teams in recent years, and also overall performance since the teams started playing against each other. This continuous action will keep cricket fans glued to their television screens right the way through winter, with early 2019 just as packed with cricket fixtures for India as the latter months of 2018.
