Of Clarke and Kohli, New Zealand and Afghanistan

For English fans, 2015 was all about a roller-coaster Ashes ride. Over a seven-week period the players threw the people every which way, lurching as they did from very good to very bad in the space of days. Even the two captains were unable to explain the swings in form and fortune that led to confusing match play and unpredictable outcomes.

England won convincingly enough in Cardiff but were hammered at Lord's. Australia - who won at Lord's with the old one-two of a huge first-innings score that gave the fast bowlers the confidence to let fly - then fell apart at Edgbaston, where England found a previously unseen aggression. This was to further manifest itself on a Nottingham morning that shocked two nations at opposite ends of the earth and held the attention of the continents in between. Effectively, England won the Trent Bridge Test in the first hour. Many would say, the first half an hour.

Chris Rogers, Steven Smith, David Warner, Shaun Marsh and Adam Voges were all back in the pavilion inside 30 minutes. During this spectacular burst of bowling and catching, the first four batsmen faced a combined total of 12 deliveries. Clarke was sixth out, inside 33 minutes.

Australia were dismissed in 18.3 overs. It was the shortest Test innings ever. The top scorer? Extras - 14 of them. Stuart Broad had figures of 8 for 15 and nobody can remember the 15. By the close of play Joe Root was unbeaten with 124, but four Englishmen were out. It was only the third time in history that one batsman had doubled the opposition's score on the first day of a Test.

Thus, 14 wickets fell on that first day while a gifted young Yorkshireman made a hundred too. This was Test cricket on speed, a kind of utopian event that transcended the obvious, or the accepted, in a way you could not believe had you not seen it for yourself.

When England won the match, and with it the Ashes, on the third morning, the sun was shining and Alastair Cook was reeling in disbelief. It was, undoubtedly, the highlight of his time at the helm - better even than conquering India. He admitted that he had not initially thought England could recover the urn this time around but that Cardiff had shown him something unexpected. The new England players - Adam Lyth, Ben Stokes, Moeen Ali, Jos Buttler and Mark Wood - were not in the least bit intimidated by the Australians. Indeed, quite the opposite. They were alive with hope and possibility.

Cook's joy was in stark contrast to the mood of Michael Clarke, who had run his race. Tired and nonplussed by the sudden disintegration of his team, he announced his retirement from the game. Soon enough, others were to follow suit.

Over the many years that international cricket has been played no country has regenerated its resources better than Australia. Utterly dominant at home throughout the winter of 2014-15, Clarke's team stood atop the world in late March after a slam dunk of a performance in the World Cup final. It had, though, been a deeply troubled season in unexpected matters. The death of Phillip Hughes shocked a country that has cricket at its core, and brought horror to the players alongside him. Clarke's statesmanship in the aftermath set him apart. He held firm and steered a course through the tragic waters.

But the game is not to be trusted. There was a price to pay for the leadership and emotional strength he had shown after the loss of this dear friend. That price was a hamstring that ripped against India in Adelaide and needed surgery before intense rehab ruled him out of the rest of the scheduled home series of matches.

Typically, Clarke devoted every waking hour to recovery and made it back for the World Cup. Though New Zealand caught him and his team off guard in an extraordinarily frenetic match at Eden Park, it was the only hiccup. Come the final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, against the same opponent, the Australians were fully tuned in. From the moment that Mitchell Starc ripped out Brendon McCullum's stumps in the first over of the game, Australia played irresistible cricket. Clarke batted with freedom and style in the run chase and the match was won at a canter. In a way it was a pity he didn't see his team through to victory but when he fell for 74, the full house - which at the MCG is some full house - stood to applaud an innings, a career and an Australian who had finally won the nation's heart.

Of course, that crowd could not have envisaged the Ashes urn returning to England within 132 days. Neither could Clarke. In a period of less than nine months, he had been through the wringer. His decision to move away from the game was no surprise. The hope is that he is at peace with it.

The Australians carried on regardless. Steven Smith became captain and was not the least bit inconvenienced by the job. His new team thumped New Zealand at the Gabba, drew a batsman's match in Perth and won a narrow game, played with a pink ball, as the night drew in at the Adelaide Oval. The future for Test cricket is pink. The future for Australia is bright.

South Africa's proud record of not having lost a series away from home since 2006 was treated with derision by Virat Kohli's invigorated Indians. In defeats in Mohali, Nagpur and Delhi, on pitches that mostly dusted from the off, Hashim Amla must have wondered how on earth Graeme Smith had done it. Now Amla has defeat by England in Durban to contemplate too. His own form appears to have been affected by the responsibility of captaincy. Worse still, AB de Villiers is overburdened and disenchanted. South Africa continues to compromise the present and future through its bitter resentment of the past. Cricket's administrators should consider the journey taken by Nelson Mandela. In it, all men were equal.

India threatens to divert from the path of self-absorption that delights its own and infuriates everyone else. Relevant changes to the power base promise better things but the IPL, at once a rose among thorns and the thorn itself, needs a little humility.

Kohli is a near-perfect representation of modern India. Direct, confrontational when necessary and charming when not. He looks good, plays great and appears on billboards. The youth group hang on his every word and move. He is MS Dhoni's natural heir. Thus, he has an opportunity to do as Graeme Smith once did, fashion the thinking about cricket in his land. It is important that India loves cricket as much as it loves those who play it. This point of difference is paramount to the impression of a vast population that is easily seduced.

Elsewhere, New Zealand are cock of the walk and eagerly await the brief visit of the Australians in February. Much is made of McCullum's free spirit and more should be made of smart governance after the board of control admitted the need for modernisation: think independent directors and a common cause. Australia have gone down the same path. In time, others will follow this lead but it is the way of cricket to resist overhaul, only to tinker.

Goodness knows what will happen next in the Caribbean. Tony Cozier's recent pieces in these pages have explained the off-field state of play with great clarity. The on-field picture, the one before millions of eyes in Hobart and Melbourne, is equally clear. The team is substandard. Clive Lloyd, optimistically, says it will take a couple of years to see improvement and he backs Jason Holder unconditionally.

Holder is the best of men, which is more than can be said for one or two others within the team and a number of those who sit on the board. West Indies cricket is long on self-interest and short on accountability. Many a heart is broken across a region where the deep and unbridled passion for stories of bat and ball deserves better. It will take some mending and the ICC should play a major part in this, both with financial investment and strategic guidance.

Pakistan makes good its pain. No home, no trust, but always hope. A World Cup quarter-final place was an admirable achievement and the head-to-head between Wahab Riaz and Shane Watson at that occasion was among the tournament's most electric passages of play. In fortress UAE, England were given another spanking as spinners took a vice-like grip on batsmen conditioned by a game on grass not baked mud. If McCullum was the international captain of the year, Misbah-ul-Haq was not far behind him. For all the trials and tribulation, Pakistan continues to produce naturally gifted cricketers. They are sent by a mighty force.

We said goodnight and good luck to two Sri Lankans who brought glory to their people and to the game. Matching the impact of Muttiah Muralitharan, Aravinda de Silva and Arjuna Ranatunga seemed beyond any man, but match them good and proper they did: Mahela Jayawardene was the prettiest of batsmen and the toughest of men, while no judge will ever question Kumar Sangakkara's place in the pantheon. The quality of their cricket, the example they set and the warmth with which they rewarded their followers is one of the game's love stories. Incidentally, there is an old sporting cliché about no one being indispensable. Jayawardene and Sangakkara sure kicked that into touch.

Bangladesh had a good year, the highlight of which was knocking England out of the World Cup. Generally progress is slow but increasingly sure. Moments such as the ones at Adelaide Oval when Rubel Hossain knocked over Stuart Broad and James Anderson with full deliveries around the 142kph mark to secure a place in the quarter-finals and reduce England to also-rans are gold, and add further grist to the mill of those who promote cricket's global expansion.

And on that very subject, Afghanistan's various successes against Zimbabwe tell us much about the game's confusion. One nation with little resource but huge heart and a collective will. The other with, well, let's just say internal issues that keep the collective at bay. What a year for Afghanistan! A first World Cup win, some near misses against terrified opponents, and qualification for the Wold T20 in India next year as well.

It is the best possible note to end on: 2015, the year of Afghanistan. See, romance is not dead after all.