Sunil Gavaskar
With the last game between Australia and India being washed out by unseasonal rains, the players of both teams got some much needed rest but they also lost out on the points needed to get the weekly CEAT award. The main contenders therefore were from teams that had started playing earlier in the week.
The situation in Pakistan being still not ripe for international cricket to be played, the Pakistan Cricket Board's matches are now played in the United Arab emirates. The New Zealand team thus played it's matches in Abu Dhabi and Dubai at the spanking new stadiums there and the series was an opportunity for the Pakistanis to avenge their defeat in the ICC Champions Trophy semi finals.
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That loss stopped Pakistan from going for a rare double of winning the ICC T20 and the ICC Champions Trophies in the same year. Even before the series started there was drama which is not new to Pakistan Cricket when the captain Younis Khan resigned and was asked to continue.
That some players were unhappy with his style of functioning was the rumour coming out of the Pakistan dressing room. After winning the first game quite easily the Pakistanis lost their way and went on to lose the three match series and thus could not exact revenge for their Champions Trophy loss and it also proved that New Zealand's win in the Champions Trophy was not just one of those lucky days for a team.
New Zealand depend a lot on a good start especially from Brendon McCullum. The wicket-keeper batsman especially after his dazzling efforts in the first IPL trophy's inaugural game has gone down in performance so much so that he was even stripped of the vice-captaincy of the New Zealand team.
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The demotion certainly has stung and has had the desired effect if one goes by his scores in the series. He got a blistering century in one game and a quickfire 78 in the matches that the Kiwis won. Whether that will get him the vice captaincy of his national team is not certain, but his batting has definitely won him this week's CEAT International Cricketer of the Week accolade.
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