December 2003

The crowning achievement of self-styled sports fanatic and Australian Prime Minister John Howard in 2003 came at the final of the Rugby World Cup in November. After the Wallabies lost an exhilarating game on an extra-time field goal, JH looked like he was going to burst into tears as he handed out the winners' medals to a seemingly endless line of England players and staff.

Adelaide has seen some remarkable finishes to Australia-India Test matches, but this year's was a beauty. It's not often a team can give away 556 runs in the first innings of the match and come back to win. Congratulations Saurav and the gang.

The honours finished fairly even in the Brisbane Test between Australia and India. If anything, Australia had slightly the upper hand.. but much less so than most people were predicting.

Just to be certain, Steve Waugh made sure he had the final word by setting India an impossible target with an hour to play, and unsettling them by taking two quick wickets. A last-minute sledge (sorry, mental disintegration) before Adelaide?

Dumped, not just as captain but as a player, after Pakistan's first-round exit from the World Cup. One of the world's finest fast bowlers of the last fifteen years, Waqar Younis has come to Sydney to ply his wares over the 2003-04 summer.

There is no more important international crisis in the world today than the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Forty million people are infected with the virus, including five million new cases in the past year. Three million people have died in the last twelve months.