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Message: <blockquote data-quote="milindasenarath" data-source="post: 6234272" data-attributes="member: 24442">December 2003: In Adelaide, a perfect square-cut from Rahul Dravid sealed an epic. After five breathless days it was difficult to decide what was more confounding: Just how had Australia managed to lose after scoring 556 by the second afternoon? Or how had India managed to win after being 85 for 4 in reply? Australia's inability to stick to their guns on the fourth day cost them the match, but it was as much a triumph of India's spirit, exemplified by none better than Dravid, who was on the field for most of the five days, batting 835 minutes and scoring 305 runs<img src="http://www.cricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/93200/93291.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />January 2004: Steve Waugh walked out to a thunderous ovation for his final Test innings. It wasn't a full stadium - Yabba's Hill, the most raucous part of the SCG - was virtually empty, but at 27,056, it was a record fifth day at Sydney. The match, against India, had been consigned to a draw for the whole of the last hour, and had turned into a farewell party. Waugh scored 80 and the series was drawn 1-1<img src="http://www.cricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/111300/111311.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />March 2004: A scriptwriter could not have penned Shane Warne's comeback better. Australia, with their backs firmly to the wall after the first two days, powered their way back into the opening Test as Warne, back after a 12-month drugs ban, polished off Sri Lanka's tail in the first innings and Matthew Hayden, the Man of the Match, set Australia on course for a massive lead. Warne then took centerstage on the final, action-packed, day as he ripped through Sri Lanka's batting and rushed to the magical 500-wicket landmark as Australia recorded a famous win<img src="http://www.cricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/12700/12779.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />March 2004: Steve Harmison took 7 for 12 as England bowled West Indies out for an embarrassing 47 - their lowest Test score - at Sabina Park, in a four-match series England won 3-0 to end 36 years of hurt. Harmison finally came of age, taking the cheapest seven-wicket haul in Test history in a performance described by his captain as "one of the greatest spells by an England bowler"<img src="http://www.cricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/12800/12841.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />March 2004: The stadium was virtually desolate, and Virender Sehwag's bat resounded as he constructed an epic that laid the foundation of a historic victory, India's first in Pakistan in 21 Tests spread over 49 years. Sehwag hit 309, India's first triple-century, going from 295 to 301 with a roundhouse blast over wide long-on off Saqlain Mushtaq to etch himself in history. It was India's most exciting player of the decade at his best<img src="http://www.cricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/13300/13349.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />April 2004: Ten years after his 375, Brian Lara returned to Antigua and regained the Test record by scoring 400 not out against England. West Indies had been walloped 3-0, and Lara, by now 34 and captain, was under intense pressure to avert a whitewash. With barely a false stroke, he became the first man to regain the top spot, hitting 43 fours and four sixes on his way to the first Test quadruple-century<img src="http://www.cricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/110400/110405.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />September 2004: West Indies beat England in the Champions Trophy final at The Oval, a match that ended in near-darkness. From the depths of 147 for 8, Courtney Browne and Ian Bradshaw set about forging an unbeaten eighth-wicket stand of 71 that at first irritated England, then alarmed them, and ultimately left them resigned to their fate<img src="http://www.cricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/36200/36209.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />October 2004: Under stand-in captain Adam Gilchrist, Australia beat India in the third Test by a massive 342 runs, to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series. Not only were India outplayed, their spirits were shattered, as all their gains of the last three years looked set to come undone. It was a great win by one of the greatest sides of all time, and they made it look easy<img src="http://www.cricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/109600/109695.8.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />February 2005: The biggest change to the game, and the most radical and lucrative, was the advent of Twenty20 cricket. Starting with the domestic Twenty20 Cup in England and picked up by other boards, Twenty20 gathered steam and now owns a sizeable chunk of the international calendar. History was made when New Zealand, sporting retro flannel and hairdos, played the first international Twenty20 against Australia in Auckland<img src="http://www.cricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/8500/8523.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />June 2005: Bangladesh pulled off one of the biggest upsets in history as they beat Australia by five wickets in an extraordinary match in Cardiff. Mohammad Ashraful was the hero, making his first one-day hundred at a run a ball, and he added 130 in 23 overs with Habibul Bashar to put them on course for a win everyone had thought impossible<img src="http://www.cricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/111500/111579.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />August 2005: A humdinger for the ages. In the most thrilling of Test matches, England held their nerve to snap a last-wicket stand and win by two runs. As the nation celebrated, Andrew Flintoff went across to console the valiant-but-vanquished. He put an arm around Brett Lee in what came to be one of the defining images of the decade<img src="http://www.cricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/52100/52152.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />September 2005: The summer of 2005 was the scene of arguably the best Test series ever, which ended with England winning back the Ashes after 18 years. England's victorious cricketers were feted as national heroes by tens of thousands of cheering Londoners who turned out to cheer them as they paraded through the streets of the capital in an open-top bus<img src="http://www.cricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/53600/53607.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />September 2005: Four months after Greg Chappell became India coach, Sourav Ganguly was sacked as captain and dropped from the team. Chappell suggested that Ganguly should step down from the captaincy and Ganguly made the coach's views public at a press conference during the first Test between India and Zimbabwe. After months of acrimony and covert mudslinging between the two, Ganguly returned to the side, while Chappell quit at the end of the 2007 World Cup<img src="http://www.cricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/94600/94646.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />January 2006: His captaincy has its share of critics and Australia lost the Ashes twice under his watch, but there was no better Australian batsman this decade than Ricky Ponting. He churned out runs, marked several individual highlights - the double effort in his 100th Test at the SCG was magnificent - and helped Australia regroup after the 2005 Ashes with an amazing streak of 20 wins in 21 Tests, including the 5-0 demolition of England in 2006-07 to regain the urn in the most emphatic way<img src="http://www.cricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/57400/57485.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></blockquote>

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