Australia remain the team to beat

By the end of a year where Australia continued to remain supreme as the leading Test and one-day side it was easy to think little had changed in world cricket. They won a third straight World Cup and, after a run of 14 consecutive Test wins, they were closing in on their own world record of 18 ahead of the start of their series with India.
In January, Australia completed only the second 5-0 Ashes whitewash, more than avenging their narrow 2-1 reverse of two years earlier. After the end of the latest Ashes, in Sydney, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne, who between them took 1,271 Test wickets, retired from the five-day game along with opening batsman Justin Langer.
Warne had single-handedly revived the fading art of leg-spin and in so doing showed how slow bowlers could be an attacking force. His haul of 708 Test wickets was a then world record and few disputed his right to be regarded as the greatest wrist-spinner the game had known.
If the success of McGrath, who carried on to the World Cup, was achieved by more conventional means, it was no less important to Australia. As reserved away from the pitch as Warne was colourful, McGrath elevated the traditional virtues of line and length into something approaching an art form and his tally of 563 Test wickets was the most by any pace bowler.
Warne's record though was surpassed by extraordinary Sri Lanka off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan whose unorthodox action continues to divide opinion. Whether Murali reaches his goal of 1,000 Test wickets remains to be seen but he may have already have an unbeatable total.
The death of Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer, found unconscious in his Jamaica hotel room on March 18, the day after his side's shock World Cup defeat against Ireland, led to a raft of conspiracy theories involving illegal betting syndicates in Asia after police launched a murder inquiry, saying the 58-year-old former England player had been strangled.
However, Woolmer was known to have suffered with diabetes and high blood pressure and last month an inquest jury returned an open verdict on his death. On the field, the first World Cup to be staged in the Caribbean suffered from being too long and from having too many lopsided contests.