Great performances in the last decade in cricket

Hi folks,
I keep reading lot of articles in the sports pages and in cricinfo reviewing the last decade. In cricinfo there was an article about great performances in the last decade. Here are my personal favourites.

1) VVS Laxman,281 against Australia at Eden Gardens. Great century against the Aussies after following on. My dad ( It is really true and he is a die hard aussie fan)told me that it was wrong to put India again and his words came true.

2)Warne's 40 wickets against England in 2005 Ashes. He was the lone reason why the result was 2-1 to England. Otherwise it would have been 4-1 for England. Who can forget his delivery to Andrew Strauss. How ironic it was for him to drop Peitersen on the final day in Oval.

3)Dravids run of form during 2002-2004. Scored four centuries on a trot including his 148 against England at Headingly under swinging conditions. Did a Laxman at Adelaide with Laxman doing a Dravid.

4)Shewags 201 against Srilanka at Galle. Negated the mysteries of Murali and Mendis while carrying his bat through.

5)Graeme Smiths fourth innings centuries against England and Australia. His 154 not out against England was awesome. His innings at Perth set the stage for the Proteas to upstage aussies in Australia.

6)Nathan Astle's blitzkrieg against England. His fastest double century included towering sixes of Andy Caddick. I wanted to be in Nzland when it happened. Chris Cairns was partnering and injured at the
time luckily for the poms. Just imagine what would it have been otherwise.

7)Glenn Mcgrath's five wicket spell at Lords in the 2005 Ashes. What a reply after getting allout for 170. He bowled Ian Bell, Vaughan and Flintoff with identical deliveries which pitched on off stump and came back to bowl them.

8)Gilchrist's second fastest century at Perth when he hit Monty Panesar for 22 runs in an over. Also his sucessive sixes of Muralitharan to reach 100 sixes were awesome.

9)Sanath Jayasuriya's double hundreds against Pakistan and against England. He shared a 100 run partnership for the 9th wicket against Pakistan when the tailender scored just 1 run.

10)A team effort: The swing bowling of England in the 2005 Ashes. Simon jones, Hamirson ,Flintoff and Hoggard didn't allow the Aussies to post a single 400+ total in the entire series. Sadly for England and World cricket Simon Jones got injured and their bowling attack faded away after that series.

With the retirements of Warne,Mcgrath,Kumble the bowling in World cricket is very bad that it makes uninteresting to watch world cricket nowadays when Batsmen chase unimaginable scores and it is not at all thrilling. I had almost stopped watching cricket in the last two years.

Note: I missed Brian Lara's series against SL when he scored more than 600 runs in a 3 match series when his team lost 3-0. It should have been gr8 to watch. Missed it!
ssundar