The new year, 2012, will be a huge sporting year and the word ?huge? isn?t an exaggeration in this case. With India?s tour of Australia truly on after a rather intense first Test match, cricket will surely be the cynosure of all attention to start with in the first two months of the year. And with Sachin Tendulkar?s 100th international 100 still the primary newsmaker there is indeed much to look forward to in cricket. But more than Tendulkar, Indian cricket needs to start 2012 well. After a rather forgettable 2011, if we consider the longer format of the game, India has every opportunity at Sydney, Perth and Adelaide. I continue to believe this is a good Indian side, which has the potential to do well Down Under and now it is upon the players to show they have the stomach for the fight. They had their opportunities in the first Test, their preparation was good and the determination, I continue to believe, is still there. It is now upto the senior pros to go out there in the middle and do the job. A good start to the year is essential to exorcise the ghosts of England and give India the opportunity to create history Down Under at the start of the year.

And as I said there continues to be Tendulkar. He played a gem at the MCG and it was a shame that he did not kick on for his 100th ton. It was one of the best innings I have seen him play in all of 2011 and based on that innings it seems somewhat unbelievable that he hasn?t scored a hundred in the last nine months. With the new year his luck ought to change. It has to when he is in such imperious form. Lean and hungry and as passionate as he was 23 years ago, Tendulkar will continue to entertain his billion-plus fans in 2012. While we celebrate Tendulkar, we mustn?t forget Dravid. Having had the best 2011 among all of the Indian legends, Dravid will do his best to finish off what has been a remarkable career in style.

If it is Australia at the start of the year, it is England towards the end of 2012 in what has to be labeled the revenge series. India can?t afford to forget the 4-0 mauling in England and will want to make amends at home once the English come to town in October. The series against England, which will surely be the last for some of the Indian legends, will perhaps decide what the future Indian Test side will look like. And if we can master the English in home conditions, it will mean that Test cricket in 2012 will have no undisputed number one team. The competition is fluid and all four of the top teams can win on their day.

For the cricket aficionado, who is unwilling to make the best format of the game his own, there continues to be the IPL in the hot summer months of April-May and the T-20 World Cup in Sri Lanka in September. India hasn?t done well in the T-20 World Cup in 2009 and 2010 and will want to make amends in sub-continental conditions. Perhaps Mahendra Singh Dhoni will want to finish off his stint as Indian captain with yet another World Cup win under his belt. His romance with captaincy started in South Africa in 2007 and it might well continue in Sri Lanka come September.

If the year starts and ends with cricket, it will be the biggest spectacle of all that hogs all limelight in the middle of the year. London 2012 is gargantuan, the biggest and the most elaborate sporting spectacle of all time. With 10,500 Olympic and 4,000 plus Para Olympic athletes expected to make London home in exactly seven months from now, the English capital, expectedly, will be the cynosure of world attention in July 2012. They will be covered by a staggering 20,000-plus journalists from across the world. With 39 disciplines of competition across 26 sports in the Olympics and 21 disciplines spread across 20 sports in the Para Olympics, London 2012 will need 5,000-plus paid employees to conduct games operations. Besides the 15,000-plus athletes and the 20,000-plus media, these employees are also expected to manage the 14,000-plus team officials who will also be present in London. Despite the issues with ticket distribution, almost nine million tickets will go through the games turnstiles with another two million making up the final number during the Para Olympics in September. The final indicator of the scale is the size of the Olympic Park. As reported in the Time Out magazine?s Olympic special issue, ?357 football pitches make up an equivalent area to that of the Olympic Park?. On the issue of budget, the organisers have been quick to claim that the Games are on budget and will in fact be under budget for the first time in recent history. Lord Coe is confident that the Games spend will be less than the ?9.3 billion set aside for the spectacle. However, these claims do not take into account the three fold increase from the original budget of ?3.8 billion as envisaged by the organisers in their Candidate File submitted to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by the London bid team.

For India too, London 2012 will be a watershed moment. The foundation was created at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in October 2010. One hundred and one medals, 38 of which were gold, second in the medals? table, displacing England for the first time ever in history, Indian Olympic sports and sports persons had made a statement to the world.

Critics, however, had drawn attention to the relatively lower level of competition at the Commonwealth Games and suggested that the real test was the Asian Games at Guangzhou in November 2010. And as India?s shooters achieved modest success at the Asian Games the murmur was fast gathering strength. But as with sport, conclusions shouldn?t be drawn till the last medal is actually won. India, which had one gold medal from Pankaj Advani in snooker to show at the end of the first week of competition at the Asian Games, suddenly came alive on November 21, 2010, to claim a further three. Ranjan Sodhi was on target in men?s double trap and Preeja Sreedharan and Sudha Singh gave millions of Indian sports fans reasons to celebrate as they raced to gold in the 10,000 meters and 3,000 meters steeplechase. Suddenly the Doha 2006 haul of ten gold medals looked achievable and with the boxers putting up a stunning show, their best ever at the Asian Games, the CWG success did not look a dream of the distant past.

Just as in the Commonwealth Games where Saina Nehwal?s gold in badminton, India?s 38th and last, was more than a medal, at Guangzhou, Vijender Singh?s gold, India?s 14th, shone brighter than its colour. Achieved with a broken thumb in the 75 kilogram category in boxing, it propelled India to an unprecedented sixth place in the medal standings and summed up the story of India?s athletes, fighting on despite administrative apathy and bureaucratic red tape at every step.

London 2012, it is hoped, will allow these athletes to occupy centrestage and herald the start of a systemic overhaul in Indian sports that the nation is badly in need of and has been craving for years.

If the Asian Games were any indication, India, for the first time ever, can realistically expect seven medals at London 2012, more than double from what it had won at Beijing. For the first time the world media was forced to publish headlines such as ?China and India up, Japan down?, in summing up Asian Games? performances in November 2010. Similar headlines post-London and India?s sport would certainly have come of age. Truly, a huge sporting year in prospect.

The writer is a sport historian