The Corridor (a cricket blog)

If, back in late 1999, you’d taken a break from worrying about the millennium bug (what was that about?) and wondered instead what the next decade had in store for world cricket, you’d have been hard pushed to predict the current landscape of the sport.

Now, as the noughties – a term given a certain appropriateness by messers Warne, Symonds and Stanford – draw to a close, they come under assessment from the cricket writers.

Rob Steen has reviewed the decade in general over on Cricinfo, and uncovers good news for the Test match format, while Andy Bull, at the Guardian, has been kept awake at night wondering who the player of the decade has been. Incidentally, Kevin Pietersen weighed into that debate in an interview published today in The Times, naming Jacques Kallis the player of this, and indeed any other, decade!

As for the best game of the past ten years, we’re blessed with choice. Sky Sports showcased one candidate yesterday, by showing a re-run of the unbelievable South African run-chase against Australia at the Wanderers in 2006. In a way, that match defined the decade: pyjama-clad, high-octane, T20-style hitting, but that didn’t stop it reducing a number of seasoned cricket watching locals to tears. In a good way.