What a year it has been!

The year began with a family feud that threatened to tear apart our tiny community. It ended with two events of utter warmth, of romance and brotherhood.

In between, a child attained adulthood and some elders saw it as a threat, a mystery spinner enriched the sport and sadly the spectre of violence engulfed cricket. And yes, just to remind people of the treasure we possess, Sachin Tendulkar began and ended the year with a century! We were not short of action!

The events at the Sydney Cricket Ground were immensely forgettable. Teams raged against each other, supporters seemed to take up arms and allegations of racism were in the air. It seemed, on the surface at least, that it was a cricketing issue, umpires might have got it wrong and the definition of the spirit of the game grew increasingly far-fetched, but it soon grew into a much bigger problem. The match referee was a fine cricketer but not very well versed with the law and it needed an excellent piece of judgement from a New Zealand judge to resolve matters.

India threatened to pull-out, a stupid story of a plane being on stand-by did the rounds and none of us really knew what to expect next. It was a grievous wound for it struck at the heart of the only real link between two countries. Hopefully Australia will sell uranium and India will provide fine software engineers, but until that happens regularly, cricket will continue to be the only real bond between our nations. Sydney must never happen again; a blot on the game associated with one of its most beautiful cities. We are too small for a schism.

But the game is such a beautiful healer. Just over three months later Andrew Symonds, at the centre of the whole affair, was being welcomed with Hyderabadi biryani, Mathew Hayden and Michael Hussey were being cheered in Chennai and Shane Warne could have won an election in Jaipur! The IPL was the marketing and cricketing event of the year; both are important for one cannot survive without the other. Clearly T20 will be the new missionary of the game, spreading it to lands where traditional Test cricket, or even one-day internationals, cannot enter. It needs to be looked upon as an opportunity, but the ICC responded by looking upon it as a threat to Test cricket. It is inexplicable. We step on our own toes sometimes.

The last fortnight of the year was proof of the fact that in our effort to protect Test cricket, we underestimate its potency. We look upon every new trend like a commercial liner would a boat in Somalia - we assume there are pirates everywhere. I watch a children's talent show on TV every week and am stunned by how nine and twelve year olds sing classical based songs and old melodies. Surely they should have known only remixes or computer generated sounds! So too with Test cricket which grew, and became stronger, in 2008. It will hold its own in the new world unless we obsess over it. But if we shut our windows and keep the fresh air out, we will grow weak.

Virender Sehwag is an example of how one form of the game needn't cannibalise another. Seemingly made for T20, he led one of the finest run-chases in the history of Test cricket. And Sachin Tendulkar provided the game one of its warmest, most beautiful moments by scoring a fine hundred and then putting the innings, and indeed cricket, in perspective by speaking eloquently of the atmosphere in which it was played. It was a series that may not, need not, have been played but England showed a largeness of heart that cricket must never forget. What a lovely change from England teams of my growing up years that moaned, complained and spoke condescendingly about the people that were hosting them. In one gesture, England made more friends than they could have imagined.

And a week later the second highest run chase was achieved. At the end a wonderfully gifted white man had produced a fine century and a shy, inexperienced black man had played with great maturity. As AB de Villiers and JP Duminy embraced, the power and magnificence of sport blossomed again. Don't forget the new South Africa is only fifteen years old and it isn't yet fifty years since Martin Luther King's rousing cry at the Lincoln Memorial for equality of black and white.It was as beautiful an end to the year as we could have hoped for.