Steve Waugh's Last Test 2004

Lore & Background

Born in New South Wales, where he began his first-class cricket career in 1984, he captained the Australian Test cricket team from 1999 to 2004, and was the most capped Test cricket player in history, with 168 appearances, until Sachin Tendulkar of India broke this record in 2010. Waugh concentrated only on batting and went on to become one of the leading batsmen of his time. He is one of only fourteen players to have scored more than 10,000 Test runs. He was named Australian of the Year in 2004 for his philanthropic work, and inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame in January 2010.

Reader's Guide

Waugh has been included in a list of one hundred Australian Living Treasures by the National Trust of Australia, awarded the Order of Australia and the Australian Sports Medal. Known as an attacking and sometimes ruthlessly efficient captain, described in 2003 as a 'cold-blooded, scientific' leader, cricket columnist of The Times Simon Barnes noted that 'Waugh wants to defeat you personally.' At the end of his final Test match, Waugh was carried by his teammates in a lap of honour around the Sydney Cricket Ground. In a fan poll conducted by the CA in 2017, he was named in the country's best Ashes XI in the last 40 years.

Did You Know?

• Waugh was born at Canterbury Hospital in Campsie, a suburb in South-Western Sydney, on 2 June 1965, four minutes before his twin brother Mark.
• He made his first-class debut for New South Wales in 1984–85, batting at number nine and bowling medium pace.
• Waugh made his Test debut against India in the 1985–86 season at Melbourne, scoring 13 and 5 and taking 2/36 in the first innings.
• In December 2017, his son Austin Waugh was named in Australia's squad for the 2018 Under-19 Cricket World Cup.