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NEWS Cricket World Cup 2007>How Australia dominated cricket in 2006 29th Dec 2006 18.02 IST By Agencies World Champions Australia continued to dominate world cricket in the year 2006. Australia beat South Africa home and away, defeated Bangladesh , won the Champions Trophy – the only one-day title to have previously eluded them – in September in India and later in the year regained the Ashes by taking an unbeatable 4-0 lead over England .
Warne, the best leg spinner ever, became the first bowler to take 700 Test wickets during another hapless performance by England in Melbourne. Warne will be joined in retirement by Aussie pace spearhead Glenn Donald McGrath , the most successful pace bowler in history, who will step down after next year's World Cup in the West Indies. England squared a rubber in India and another against Sri Lanka before beating Pakistan . But for them 2006 will always be remembered as the year they tamely surrendered the Ashes after only 15 months and they go into the new year facing the possibility of a 5-0 whitewash. In addition, the one-day record of the English bordered on the dismal. The outstanding match of the year was the amazing run-chase by South Africa at the Wanderers in Johannesburg in March. Australia became the first team to cross the 400-run mark in one-day cricket when they posted 434/4 in the decider with Ponting leading the way with a superb 164. Their record lasted for a mere three-and-a-half hours, however, as South Africa scored 438/9, with Herschelle Gibbs getting 175, to win with a ball to spare. Sri Lanka subsequently surpassed the record for the highest score in one-day cricket when they posted 443/9 against Netherlands in Amstelveen in July. Pakistan's Mohammad Yousuf ( Yousuf Youhana ) broke West Indian Sir Vivian Richards' 30-year-old record for the highest aggregate runs in a calendar year and created a new record of scoring nine centuries. The 32-year-old Yousuf amassed 665 runs against West Indies, a Pakistan record for most runs in a three-Test series, to bring his total for the calendar year to a record 1,788. Yousuf is being challenged every step of the way by Ponting, who at the start of the year became the only batsman to score a century in each innings of his 100th Test. The Australian captain scored his 33rd test century in Adelaide to move to fourth in the list of most century-makers behind Sachin Tendulkar (35) and Brian Lara (34), who equalled Sunil Gavaskar's mark (34) this year. Pakistan became the first country in Test history to forfeit a match after refusing to take the field after tea on the fourth day against England. Hair, no stranger to controversy, and fellow umpire Billy Doctrove had penalised Pakistan for alleged ball tampering, docking them five runs and changing the ball. In a move, which divided world cricket, Hair was sacked from the International Cricket Council's (ICC) elite panel of umpires. Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq was cleared of ball tampering although the ICC banned him for four one-day internationals for bringing the game into disrepute. In a difficult year for Pakistan, their fast bowlers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif became the first international cricketers to test positive for performance-enhancing drugs. Shoaib and Asif were banned from cricket in November after testing positive for nandrolone but were cleared a month later when a Pakistan tribunal ruled they had not received sufficient warning that supplements they were taking could be contaminated by the banned steroid. West Indies fluctuated between the ordinary and exceptional when they emerged as surprising finalists in the Champions Trophy, while India flattered to deceive yet again, spiralling from one defeat to another specially in ODI cricket. Also View In-Depth Coverage: Cricket World Cup 2007 Team Page: Australia Team Page: West Indies | LIVE CRICKET COVERAGE NEWS ~ Gilchrist has no plans to retire after World Cup ~ Ganguly's new batting approach may cost him sixer record ~ India 'squash the Orange' in World Cup warm-up game ~ Symonds gets a new hairdo for World Cup ~ Dhoni readies himself for stand-up act at World Cup (more in NEWS) FACE-TO-FACE ~ 500-mark a possibility in World Cup: Hayden ~ Minnows add charm to World Cup: Dravid (more in FACE-TO-FACE) COLUMNS ~ Will Sri Lanka replicate 1996 World Cup success? (more in COLUMNS) OFF-THE-FIELD ~ Ganguly again the darling of corporate world ~ Ganguly roped in as brand ambassador of Puma (more in OFF-THE-FIELD) PLAYERS Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble (more PLAYERS) TEAMS India, South Africa, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia, West Indies, Zimbabwe, England, New Zealand, Bangladesh, Kenya, Holland | 
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