The year 2008 marked the end of Australian domination in world cricket.

Captain Ricky
Ponting would be the most worried man going into 2009. While the omens were already
there at the start of the the year with controversies surrounding the Border-Gavaskar
trophy with Symmonds and Harbhajan at the epicentre.

The issue almost divided the world cricket into two factions. But the Board of Control for
Cricket in India (BCCI) was able to salvage justice for Harbhajan Singh after judge
Hansen cleared him off all the charges, including that of racism as claimed by
Australians.

The Test match victory, following this whole episode gave the Indian team a new boost
and more than one reason to smile. India recorded one of their most amazing Test
triumphs overseas when they beat Australia by 72 runs in the thrilling third cricket Test at
Perth to snap the champion team’s record 16-match winning streak.

Set 413 to win a record 17th Test in succession, the Australians were dismissed for 340
allowing the spirited visitors to reduce the margin to 2-1 in the four match series with one
full day to spare. Not many had given the Indians any hope at the WACA, regarded as the
fastest pitch in the world. But Anil Kumble and his men came out firing.

India again beat Australia 2-0 in the home series, in which innumerable records were
broken and India saw one of its finest players bidding adieu. Sachin Tendulkar became
the highest run getter in the history of Test cricket by surpassing Brian Lara’s world
record. Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble retired form the international cricket after
giving so many wonderful moments to the cricket fans in India and worldwide.

Indian cricket scaled the ever new heights in the year 2008. Virender Sehwag scored a
double and a triple hundred in while Gautam Gambhir and VVS Laxman scored double
tons in the same innings in the Delhi Test against Australia. Four Indian batsmen scoring
more than 1000 runs in the calendar year is itself a testimony to the fact that India was
arguably the best Test team in 2008.

India’s win over England after being pushed to the walls for four days, gave some very
emotional moments to the whole nation as the victory, which came from the bat of Sachin
Tendulkar – a Mumbaikar, was quite necessary to heal the people’s sentiments, which
were disturbed by the terrorist attack on Mumbai.

The year 2008, also saw the inaugural edition of the much anticipated Indian Premier
League. There was cricket but with that there were whole lot of other things as well to
attract people to cricket stadiums, which included loud music, splendid fireworks and
cheer girls, which changed the definition of cricket, forever. Shane Warne led his side
Rajasthan royals to win the inaugural IPL tournament.

The year 2008 would be etched in the history of sports for more than one reason. The
year witnessed the most expensive summer Olympics being organised by China in
Beijing. A total of an estimated US$ 42 billion were spent on the 29th edition of the
Olympic Games in Beijing, making it the most expensive games ever.

The 29th edition would be in the memory of people not only because of the controversies
but also for some phenomenon performances. Michael Phelps became the first man in the
history of the modern games to win eight Olympic Gold medals (7 of those were world
records) surpassing Mark Spitz’s record of seven Golds in Munich Olympics way back in
1972.

Usain ‘lightning’ Bolt made a clean sweep in racing winning the 100 m with a record
time of 9.69 seconds in a race dubbed by Michael Johnson as ‘the greatest 100 m
performance in the history of an event’, and became the first sprinter since Carl Lewis in
1984, to win three sprint events in a single Olympiad: 100m, 200m and 4X100m relay.

India won its first individual Gold as Abhinav Bindra shot his way to the Yellow metal in
10m air rifle event. Some unexpected medals; courtesy Vijender Singh and Sushil Kumar
put India at the 50th place in the Olympics medal tally, somewhat respectable position in
juxtaposition with previous Olympics. Also special mention of Saina Nehwal and Akhil
Kumar, who defeated world top seeds in the badminton and boxing respectively and
showed great promise for the future. Sania Mirza, however, struggled throughout the
year.

China ended the American domination by winning 51 Gold medals and topping the
Olympiad charts for the first time, though some controversies marred the Chinese
celebration as there were reports of some members of Chinese athletics being under age.
The US ‘Redeem team’ won the basketball title back, which it lost in Athens in 2004.

Viswanathan Anandhad a phenomenal 2008 and his biggest moment of the came when he
retained the world championship title, defeating the challenger Vladimir Kramnik. The
match took place at the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in
Bonn, Germany between October 14 and 29, 2008.

The tennis courtin 2008, saw the rise and the fall of some stars. No 1 seed Roger Federer
failed to make the mark in 2008 as he could not even manage to enter the finals after
suffering a loss at the hands of Novak Djokovic, who ultimately won the Australian open.
Again in French open, Rafael Nadal defeated ‘Fedex’ in straight sets, while Ana Ivanovic
lifted the women’s title. Rafael Nadal defeated five-time Wimbledon champion Roger
Federer in five sets to win his first Wimbledon title and fifth Grand Slam championship.
It was the longest championship match in Wimbledon history with play lasting four hours
and 48 minutes and with two rain delays. The event stretched over seven hours ending
just before nightfall. It marked the first time Federer lost a Grand Slam championship
match other than the French Open. Williams sisters won the last two Grand Slams of the
year with Venus bagging Wimbledon and Serena lifting US open title.

Spain was the European footballchampion with David Villa being the best player of the
tournament, however the biggest spectacle was setup in Moscow when Manchester
United and Chelsea went head to head in the Champions League. The match went
through various roller coasters with Man United prevailing over Roman Abrahamovich’s
Chelsea in the penalty shoot outs.

In August 2008, Jeev milkha Singh achieved the highest ranking for an Indian golfer in
any major event at the 2008 PGA Championship in Oakland Hills, finishing at T-9,
making him arguably India’s best golfer ever.

Singh finished the 2008 European Tour season ranked 12th on the Order of Merit, and
after winning the Barclays Singapore Open won his second Order of Merit title on the
Asian Tour.

Lewis Hamilton topped the charts of the Formula One points table of drivers’
championship, beating Felipe Massa by just one point, while Ferrari won the
constructors’ championship. Also, this was the first time that an Indian team, Force One
was participating in the 2008 season with Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fiscichella as the
drivers for the team. However, no miracles happened as Force One along with both
drivers ended the season with 0 points.

The year has been great for the sports but there were some amazing facts also. Pakistan
did not play a single Test match in the whole year. This was the last time that baseball
and softball were played as Olympic sports. The two have been scrapped from the 2012
London Olympics.

After 1936 it was the first time that a country other than the United States or the Soviet
Union has led the medal count. Pakistan was the most populous country not to win an
Olympic medal (164 million residents, sixth-largest nation in the world), whereas Iceland
was the least populous country to win an Olympic medal.