2010-2019 in pictures
Monster runs, the rise of T20, a tragic loss, and the shadow of fixing
Feb 2010: The decade kicked off with a record that was a long time coming. Sachin Tendulkar became the first male batsman to score an ODI double-hundred. He got to the milestone in 147 balls in a massive win for India against South Africa. After that, it was like a dam had been breached: seven other batsmen made doubles this decade, including the king of them all, Rohit Sharma, who did it three times and holds the record for highest individual score - 264.•Getty Images
Aug 2010: News broke of three Pakistan players involved in spot-fixing at the Lord's Test. Among them was 18-year-old pace-bowling sensation Mohammad Amir, who overstepped by nearly half a foot to bowl a no-ball agreed upon beforehand with a News of the World journalist posing as a bookie. The ICC banned Amir for five years, Mohammad Asif for seven, and Salman Butt for ten years, and all three also underwent prison sentences in the UK.•Getty Images
Oct 2012: Marlon Samuels inspired West Indies to a World T20 title, their first global silverware in six years, with a scarcely believable victory over hosts Sri Lanka in Colombo. Choosing to bat, West Indies managed only 32 from the first ten overs, but Samuels went on to crash six sixes in his 78 and helped them post a respectable 137. Sri Lanka folded rather meekly for 101 in their fourth loss in a big final since 2007.•AFP
May 2013: The Delhi police arrested Rajasthan Royals players Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankit Chavan for allegedly fulfilling promises to bookmakers in the 2013 IPL. All three received bans from the BCCI but there was a bigger fallout from a subsequent independent probe. First, Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals were suspended from the IPL for two years for malfeasance and then a court-appointed committee was set up to look into large-scale reforms within the BCCI.•AFP
Muttiah Muralitharan (2010), Ricky Ponting (2012), Mahela Jayawardene (2015), Kumar Sangakkara (2015), Shivnarine Chanderpaul (2016), Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis Khan (2017) Rangana Herath (2018), Alastair Cook (2018) were some of the more high-profile international retirements this decade. Murali's was the most dramatic: he got to 800 Test wickets with his final ball of his last game.•AFP
Nov 2014: A day cricket will not forget: 25-year-old Australian batsman Phillip Hughes died after being struck by a bouncer on the side of his head during a Shield game in Sydney. Hughes underwent surgery after being rushed to hospital from the SCG but did not regain consciousness.•Getty Images
Nov 2015: The first day-night Test was played in Adelaide between Australia and New Zealand, with a pink ball. By "dinner" on day three, Australia needed 76 runs with seven wickets in hand and after a brief collapse, the chase was completed by Peter Siddle and a hobbling Mitchell Starc, who had fractured his foot. The overall match attendance was 123,736 - an all-time Adelaide Oval record for a non-Ashes Test.•Getty Images
Apr 2016: With 19 needed off the last over of the T20 World Cup final, Carlos Brathwaite launched Ben Stokes for four sixes off the first four balls. Before Brathwaite's bludgeoning cameo, the mainstay of the chase had been Marlon Samuels, whose unbeaten 85 mirrored his heroics in the 2012 final against Sri Lanka. The win capped an unforgettable day for West Indies cricket: their women's team won their first World T20 title, upsetting Australia a few hours earlier.•Associated Press
Jul 2017: England won their fourth women's World Cup when they beat India by nine runs in the final at Lord's. Fast bowler Anya Shrubsole took 6 for 46, wresting the game out of India's hands when they needed 38 off 44 balls with seven wickets in hand.•Getty Images
May-Jun 2018: Test cricket welcomed two new teams into its fold. Ireland made a respectable debut against Pakistan in Malahide - following on and eventually losing but managing a total of over 300 in the second innings, thanks to a maiden hundred by Kevin O'Brien; Afghanistan's introduction to the format was more brutal, as they lost to India inside two days. They made up with a victory in their second Test, against Bangladesh a year later.•Sportsfile/Getty Images
Nov 2018: Australia won their fourth women's T20 World Cup title (in six championships), beating England by eight wickets in Antigua. Ashleigh Gardner turned in a dominant all-round performance, with 3 for 22 and then 33 runs in the chase of a modest 106 as her side breezed home with nearly five overs to spare.•ICC/Getty
Mar 2019: Bangladesh's tour of New Zealand was called off after a terrorist attack on two Christchurch mosques, one of which the players were about to visit for Friday prayers just before the gunman arrived there. New Zealand's prime minister Jacinda Ardern called it the "one of New Zealand's darkest days".•Getty Images
May 2010: England men clinched their first ICC global title when Paul Collingwood's team beat Australia by seven wickets to win the 2010 T20 World Cup in Barbados. Kevin Pietersen and Craig Kieswetter starred in the final with a 111-run stand, helping England chase a target of 148 with three overs to spare.•Getty Images
Jan 2011: England's first Ashes win in Australia in 24 years was a dominant one, featuring three innings victories in the 3-1 scoreline. Alastair Cook was the Man of the Series for his 766 runs, which included three centuries and two fifties.•Getty Images
Dec 2012: The end of a 28-year wait. Newly appointed England captain Alastair Cook racked up 562 runs in a 2-1 victory in India, but it was Kevin Pietersen who played the most unforgettable innings - with his 186 in the ten-wicket win in Mumbai. Monty Panesar and Graeme Swann showed up India's spinners by taking 47 wickets between them in the four Tests.•BCCI
Jun 2013: The 2013 Champions Trophy final, effectively a T20 game because of rain, was won by India, thanks to the efforts of their bowlers, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin and Ishant Sharma in particular, who successfully defended a total of 129 against England. India's victory made MS Dhoni the first captain to win all three ICC titles.•Getty Images
Dec 2013: It took Mitchell Johnson only 14 days to win back the Ashes Australia lost in 2009, using intimidatory pace to crush England. He took 37 wickets at 13.97 in the five Tests, all of which Australia won comprehensively.•PA Photos
Jan 2015: It was carnage in Johannesburg as AB de Villiers broke the record for the fastest ODI hundred by five balls - getting it in 31 balls. He also broke the record for the fastest fifty, reaching his in 16 balls, one fewer than Sanath Jayasuriya took in 1996, and equalled the one for most sixes in an innings - 16. West Indies only managed 291 for 7 in reply to South Africa's 439.•Gallo Images
Dec 2015: The inaugural season of the Women's Big Bash League - the first women's T20 league - was a success, with record crowds and healthy viewership for the televised games. Overseas stars like Suzie Bates, Amy Sattherthwaite, Sarah Taylor, Shabnim Ismail and Deandra Dottin joined Australian internationals like Meg Lanning, Lisa Sthalekar, Alex Blackwell and Ellyse Perry in the eight Big Bash franchises. Sydney Thunder clinched the title, beating Sydney Sixers by three wickets in the final.•Getty Images
Oct 2016: A historic first Test win for Bangladesh over a major team fielding a full-strength XI. England were on the receiving end, by a convincing 108-run margin. The star of the show was 19-year-old offspinner Mehidy Hasan, who took two six-fors in the match, which was wrapped up inside three days. A year later, Bangladesh got their first Test win against Australia in a low-scoring thriller, also in Mirpur.•Getty Images
Mar 2018: The cricket world watched agape as TV cameras at the Cape Town Test picked up Cameron Bancroft trying to shove a bit of sandpaper down his trousers, having earlier used it on the ball. Bancroft and Steven Smith admitted to ball-tampering at a press conference after play that day. Cricket Australia eventually banned Smith and David Warner, his vice-captain, for a year, and Bancroft for nine months from international and domestic cricket.•AFP/Getty Images
Jun 2018: Seventeen-year-old Amelia Kerr broke the record for the highest individual score in women's ODIs when she made 232 not out against Ireland in Dublin. Her innings, which went past Belinda Clark's record of 229 - set way back in 1997 - came in 145 balls. She then took a five-for to consign Ireland to a 305-run defeat. Earlier in the series, New Zealand had set the highest total in all ODI cricket, 490.•Getty Images
Dec 2018: New Zealand's first away Test series win against Pakistan in 49 years came via two contrasting victories in Abu Dhabi. First, an incredible four-run win after Pakistan needed 46 to win with seven wickets in hand - starring debutant left-arm spinner Ajaz Patel; then an emphatic 123-run victory on the back of second-innings hundreds by Kane Williamson and Henry Nicholls.•Getty Images
Aug 2019: A month after his World Cup final heroics, Ben Stokes did more of the same in an Ashes Test in Headingley, batting smartly and courageously with No. 11 Jack Leach to chase down a record total of 359. But Australia retained the Ashes on the back of an unstoppable Steven Smith scoring 774 runs in four Tests.•Getty Images
Apr 2011: In his sixth attempt and towards the end of his 24-year international career, Sachin Tendulkar finally won a World Cup, although the enduring memory of the final is MS Dhoni's six to finish the match, against Sri Lanka. Yuvraj Singh was instrumental in getting India to the final, with 362 runs and 15 wickets; he made an unbeaten half-century in the quarter-final to prevent Australia from making it to the semis for the first time since 1992.•Michael Steele/Getty Images
Feb 2013: Australia Women won their sixth World Cup title after thrashing West Indies by 114 runs in Mumbai - the largest margin of victory in terms of runs in a World Cup final. Half-centuries from Rachael Haynes and Jess Cameron set up their total of 259, but it was Ellyse Perry, playing with an injured ankle, who hit the decisive blows: first with a 22-ball 25 lower down the order and then by dismissing West Indies' top three in quick succession.•ICC/Getty
Nov 2013: An era came to an end when Sachin Tendulkar said goodbye in his 200th Test, against West Indies at his home ground, Wankhede in Mumbai. The match itself was a ridiculously one-sided affair, ending on the third morning with an innings victory for India. Tendulkar made 74 in his final Test innings and then delivered a stirring speech in front of a doting crowd.•BCCI
Apr 2014: After four losses in big finals, Sri Lanka finally made good by winning the 2014 T20 World Cup by six wickets over India in Mirpur. It was a fitting (T20I) farewell for stalwarts Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara, who starred with a 35-ball 52 in the 131-run chase.•ICC
Mar 2015: A fifth World Cup title for Australia's men's side, made sweeter because they won it at home, in front of a 93,000-strong MCG crowd. New Zealand faltered in their first appearance in a World Cup final right from when Mitchell Starc bowled Brendon McCullum for a duck in the first over. Their modest 183 was easily chased by Australia in 33.1 overs, with contributions from David Warner, Steven Smith and Michael Clarke, who was playing his final ODI.•Getty Images
Feb 2016: Thirty years after Viv Richards set the record for the fastest Test hundred, Brendon McCullum broke it by two balls. In his final Test, against Australia in Christchurch, he got to the milestone in 54 deliveries. Earlier in the decade, Richards' record had been equalled by an unlikely candidate: Misbah-"Tuk Tuk"-ul-Haq.•Getty Images
Jun 2017: Pakistan thrashed India by 180 runs to win the Champions Trophy, at The Oval. Opener Fakhar Zaman set up the total of 338 with his maiden hundred after which Mohammad Amir ripped out India's vaunted top three in a searing and incisive opening spell.•Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images
May 2018: A stirring comeback by the suspended Chennai Super Kings, with MS Dhoni restored as his beloved franchise's captain. They won their third IPL title, beating a strong Sunrisers Hyderabad side by eight wickets in the final.•BCCI
Jun 2018:The highest score in men's ODIs came at Trent Bridge, where England had set the previous world record of 444 for 3 in 2016. Against Australia this time, they made 481 for 6, with Jonny Bairstow (139 off 92 balls) and Alex Hales (147 off 92) chief plunderers in an innings in which England scored at 9.62 an over. Australia were bowled out for 239 in their biggest defeat ever.•Getty Images
Jan 2019: Cheteshwar Pujara (521 runs) and Jasprit Bumrah (21 wickets) were the architects of India's first series win in Australia, starring in victories in Adelaide and Melbourne respectively. Rain prevented India from making it 3-1 in Sydney, where Australia followed on for the first time at home since 1988.•David Gray/AFP/Getty Images