India vs Australia
2023-10-08
Jasprit Bumrah's specific plan to disrupt Steve Smith with back-of-a-length deliveries outside off stump and targeted yorkers throughout the 2023 World Cup — including the final at Ahmedabad — produced one of the tournament's defining individual bowling-batting contests.
Australia vs India
19 November 2023
Travis Head's stunning 137 off 120 balls transformed a desperate Australian chase in front of 134,000 partisan Indian supporters into one of cricket's most astonishing individual performances, handing Australia a sixth ODI World Cup title.
Australia vs England
2021-12-08
Mitchell Starc's inswinging yorker to Joe Root in the 2021-22 Ashes — repeatedly bowling through the gate between bat and pad — became the symbol of England's batting vulnerability to left-arm inswing and contributed to Australia's 4-0 series win.
Australia vs India
2020-12-17
Pat Cummins's systematic off-stump line targeting Virat Kohli's drive during the 2020-21 series — dismissing Kohli four times in one series while he averaged just 9.5 — produced the sharpest statistical evidence of one bowler finding and exploiting the world's best batsman.
West Indies vs Australia
2019-07-03
Jason Holder's innovative around-the-wicket plan against Steve Smith — bowling into the rough outside leg stump — provided one of the 2019 series' most sophisticated bowling strategies against cricket's most technically gifted batsman, forcing Smith into specific defensive decisions he found unfamiliar.
England vs Australia
2019-08-01
James Anderson's specific plan to dismiss David Warner in the 2019 Ashes — targeting his front-pad movement with late inswing and full-pitched deliveries that trapped him LBW or bowled repeatedly — produced Warner's worst Ashes series statistically (95 runs in 10 innings) and Anderson's greatest personal triumph.
South Africa vs Australia
2018-03-01
Kagiso Rabada's dismissal of David Warner during South Africa's 2018 home series — followed by a shoulder bump that earned Rabada a suspension — and the overall tension between the two teams that contributed to the Sandpaper Gate atmosphere of the tour.
England vs Australia
2015-09-13
Ben Stokes was given out for 'obstructing the field' after raising his hand to protect himself from a throw, becoming only the 7th player in ODI history to be dismissed that way.
Australia vs New Zealand
2015-03-29
Australia beat New Zealand by 7 wickets in the 2015 World Cup Final at the MCG — captain Michael Clarke's farewell tournament — winning their fifth World Cup title and becoming the first team to win the tournament on home soil.
India, Australia, England vs Rest of Cricket World
8 February 2014
India, Australia, and England pushed through a radical ICC restructuring that gave them a vastly disproportionate share of revenue and governance power, undermining smaller cricketing nations.
Australia vs South Africa
2012-11-22
Dale Steyn's sustained assault on Michael Clarke across multiple Tests in 2012 — dismissing him repeatedly with inswing and seam movement — produced one of cricket's most compelling bowler-captain confrontations, with Steyn briefly making Clarke look like a vulnerable tail-ender.
India vs Australia
2012-02-29
Virat Kohli's 2012 CB Series in Australia announced him to the world as cricket's next great batsman — scoring 230 runs across three successive run-chases, including 133* to chase 316, 75 to chase 270, and 66 to chase 321 — an unprecedented sequence of successful chases.
South Africa vs Australia
2009-01-04
South Africa needed 72 more runs to save the first Test when Graeme Smith — their captain — came to the crease with a broken left hand, batting one-handed to guide South Africa to a draw over the final 56 balls.
Australia vs Sri Lanka
2007-04-28
Adam Gilchrist made 149 off 104 balls in the World Cup final — with a squash ball hidden in his glove — as Australia completed a comprehensive victory that confirmed their status as the greatest ODI side ever assembled.
Australia vs South Africa
2007-04-03
Australia needed 19 off the last over to reach the 2007 World Cup final. Michael Hussey hit 18 off the first five balls — then a bye completed the single needed as Australia tied the match and qualified for the final on Duckworth-Lewis calculations.
Australia vs England
2007-01-05
Australia whitewashed England 5-0 in the 2006-07 Ashes — revenge for England's 2005 series win — with every Test won by a margin of over 200 runs, confirming Ponting's side as the dominant Test team of the decade.
Australia vs South Africa
2006-11-05
Brett Lee's pace and Warne's spin working in tandem against Graeme Smith during the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy produced one of the great bowling partnerships targeting a specific batsman — Lee softening Smith with pace before Warne introduced himself with attacking left-arm variations.
Australia vs Various
2006-01-01
Matthew Hayden's increasingly large bats prompted rival teams to joke about their size and eventually led to ICC regulations on bat dimensions.
South Africa vs Australia
2006-03-12
Australia scored a world-record 434/4 in an ODI and thought they'd won — then South Africa chased it down with 438/9, producing the greatest and most absurd ODI ever.
England vs Australia
4 August 2005
During his famous 68 in England's second innings at Edgbaston in 2005, Andrew Flintoff survived LBW appeals that replays suggested were out. England won by just 2 runs — the narrowest possible margin — making every reprieve Flintoff received potentially match-deciding.
England vs Australia
2005-08-04
Shane Warne and Kevin Pietersen's personal duel during the 2005 Ashes — culminating in Pietersen's extraordinary 158 at The Oval against Warne and Australia's best bowling — defined both the series and a remarkable personal rivalry that lasted for years.
England vs Australia
2005-09-12
Kevin Pietersen made 158 in his first Ashes Test appearance at The Oval — including sixes off Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath — to help England draw the final Test and win their first Ashes since 1987.
England vs Australia
2005-08-07
England beat Australia by 2 runs at Edgbaston in 2005 — the narrowest Ashes victory in history, a match that swung multiple times across four days, and is widely voted the greatest Test match ever played.
England vs Australia
2005-09-12
Andrew Flintoff made 402 runs and took 24 wickets in the 2005 Ashes — joint Man of the Series with Shane Warne — in a sustained all-round performance that defined the series and England's first Ashes win in 18 years.
India vs Australia
2004-10-06
Brett Lee's relentless short-ball barrage at Sourav Ganguly during India-Australia series produced one of cricket's most debated technical battles — Lee exposing Ganguly's vulnerability outside off stump and against the rising ball, Ganguly battling back with characteristic defiance.
Sri Lanka vs Australia
2004-03-09
Muttiah Muralitharan's extraordinary spinning arsenal — off-break, doosra, top-spinner, and variations — created the most complex spin-bowling challenge that Ricky Ponting, Australia's best batsman, encountered across his career, with Murali dismissing him repeatedly through deliveries Ponting couldn't consistently read.
Australia vs various
2004-07-22
Ricky Ponting captained Australia in 77 Test wins — the most by any Test captain in history — across 7 years and 77 matches, leading them to two World Cup titles, four consecutive Ashes series wins, and the world's top Test ranking.
Australia
11 February 2003
Shane Warne was sent home from the 2003 World Cup after testing positive for a banned diuretic, receiving a one-year ban from cricket.
Australia vs India
2003-03-23
Ricky Ponting made 140 not out off 121 balls as Australia made 359/2 in the World Cup final — the highest team total in a World Cup final — before bowling India out for 234 to win by 125 runs and complete a second consecutive World Cup triumph.
Pakistan vs Australia
2002-10-11
The contest between Shoaib Akhtar's 100mph+ pace and Matthew Hayden's muscular counter-attacking technique across the 2002 Pakistan-Australia series produced cricket's most violent battle between raw pace and deliberate power batting.
India vs Australia
2001-03-11
Harbhajan Singh took India's first Test hat-trick in 67 years — dismissing Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist, and Shane Warne in the first innings — sparking India's comeback from following on that ultimately won the Test and the series.
Australia vs various
2000-10-29
Between October 1999 and March 2001, Australia won 16 consecutive Test matches — a record that has never been equalled in Test cricket history, representing the most dominant period of Test cricket ever seen by a single team.
India vs Australia
1998-04-22
In the space of three days, Sachin Tendulkar hit two centuries against Australia in Sharjah — one in a qualifying match against a desert sandstorm, one in the final — comprehensively destroying Shane Warne's aura and cementing his status as the world's greatest batsman.
Sri Lanka vs Australia
1996-03-17
Aravinda de Silva made 107 not out in the World Cup final — and also took 3 wickets with the ball — to lead Sri Lanka to their first World Cup title in a comprehensive 7-wicket victory over favourites Australia.
Australia vs Various
9 December 1998
Australian stars Shane Warne and Mark Waugh admitted to accepting money from an Indian bookmaker known as 'John' in exchange for pitch and weather information during the 1994 tour to Sri Lanka.
Australia vs Various
1993-01-01
Merv Hughes, the moustachioed Australian fast bowler, was famous for his creative and hilarious sledging that often left batsmen and teammates in stitches.
England vs Australia
1990-08-09
Merv Hughes's relentless verbal and physical campaign against Graham Gooch during the 1990 Ashes — in which Gooch was in magnificent form scoring 456 runs including 333 — illustrated the limits of intimidation against a batsman of exceptional concentration and technique.
Australia
1989-05-01
David Boon allegedly consumed 52 cans of beer on the flight from Australia to England for the 1989 Ashes series, setting a legendary drinking record.
West Indies vs Australia
1975-06-21
Clive Lloyd made 102 off 85 balls in the very first World Cup final at Lord's in 1975, leading West Indies to a 17-run victory over Australia in a match that ran until 8:43pm under floodlights — and established the World Cup as a viable global cricket competition.
South Africa vs Australia
1970-02-05
Graeme Pollock made 274 against Australia — the highest score ever made by a South African in Tests until 2012, and one of the finest innings in the game's history, played by a batsman whose career was cut short by apartheid isolation.
Australia vs England
1948-08-18
Don Bradman's 1948 Australian side went through the entire England tour — 34 matches including 5 Tests — without losing a single game, becoming the only team in Ashes history to complete a full tour unbeaten.
Australia vs England
1877-03-15
The first ever Test match was played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in March 1877 — Australia beat England by 45 runs, with Charles Bannerman scoring the first century in Test cricket history (165 retired hurt).