Top 10 Australian batsmen of all time

3 Steve Waugh

Steve Waugh

Steve Waugh debuted for Australia in Test cricket in 1985 when the team was being rebuilt under Allan Border, and when he retired 19 years later in 2004, the national team was back to being the best side in the world.

During those years, Steve Waugh emerged as Australia's best batsman and was famous for his ability to score runs against all odds, despite having serious deficiencies in his technique.

He played 168 Tests for Australia and scored 10927 runs at an average of 51.06. In addition, he scored 32 centuries and became one of the top batsmen of his era. He might not have been great to watch, but there was no other batsman one would have liked to be in the middle when the pressure was on.

In one day cricket, he was an accumulator par excellence and could shift gears with ease. In 325 games, he may have scored only 3 centuries (largely because he was not a top order players) but scored 45 half-centuries, to end with an aggregate of 7569 runs.

Waugh was a vital member of the 1987 World Cup winning team, and then was the captain and one of the team's leading batsmen when Australia won the World Cup for the second time in 1999 in England.