Steve Waugh is one of the greatest Australian batters ever to play the game of cricket and his impeccable leadership skills helped Australia become a dominant cricketing nation. Steve Waugh is also one of the most respected players of the last 35 years and his conduct on and off the field has been exemplary. He has played so many incredible innings that it is extremely difficult to choose just 5 innings from those.
Steve Waugh was an artist at work during his batting performances and that is the reason why all the other teams were scared of him as if he sticks around for sometime then he will make you pay and the Australian cricket fans loved watching him bat. He has so many incredible innings to his name and to choose 5 from them is unfair but we will do our best. So , let’s take a look at the Top 5 best innings of Steve Waugh.
177* vs England at Old Trafford (1989)
These were the early years in the career of Steve Waugh and during his first 26 test matches he was not scoring lots of runs and his average was just a shade over 30 and his form was being put into question and then came this innings against England and everything changed and there was no looking back for Steve Waugh and it was such that for 393 consecutive runs Steve Waugh was not dismissed by England and he had arrived. He scored this 177* and won the match for Australia by 210 runs and the name Steve Waugh was taken seriously among cricketing circles.
164 vs South Africa at Adelaide (1994)
The series vs South Africa was at a delicate point as South Africa led the series 1-0 going into the second test and Australia were under pressure and this is where Steve Waugh thrives and he showed all of that in this incredible innings and against the likes of Allan Donald and Fanie De Villiers and to bat like this showed the world that this Steve Waugh was something really special and rarely seen in world cricket so this wonderful innings helped Australia win the match and level the series at 1-1. He would do lots more of these for years to come.
200 vs West Indies at Kingston (1995): Steve Waugh’s highest test score
This is Steve Waugh’s highest test score as well as an innings that defined the Australia- West Indies Rivalry forever as before this test match it was the West Indies who were the dominant team vs Australia in test cricket and this particular series was tied at 1-1 going into the final test match and Steve Waugh had made up his mind that Australia will win this series and to do that he scored his first double hundred in test cricket and that helped Australia win the series and since then they have dominated over West Indies.
108 and 116 vs England at Old Trafford (1997)
This was a rare Ashes series where Australia were on the brink of losing the Ashes as they were trailing 1-0 going into a tough pitch in Manchester and it was proved by the fact that only four other batters crossed 50 runs in this match and Steve Waugh showed why he was a class above most players as not only did he score two centuries in two innings of this test match but also won the test match for his nation and eventually they went to regain the Ashes from England.
157 vs Pakistan at Rawalpindi (1998)
Australia had not won a test match in the last 39 years before this test match in Pakistan and it was looking like history would repeat itself but t Steve Waugh stood between history and Australia and he played one of his finest ever innings when the Aussies were tottering at 28-3 and he scored these runs then and helped Australia score 513 runs in the first innings and as a result they won the test match and changed history forever and Steve Waugh was at the forefront of it.
Also Read | Greatest Australian Cricketers of all time
