Mark Waugh announced his retirement from Test cricket after being dropped from the 12-man squad for the first Ashes Test at Brisbane on November 7. Darren Lehmann replaced him in the side. The dropping of Waugh ends an era in Australian cricket, in which he and his brother, Steve, had played 279 Tests for Australia between them. They became the first twins to play Tests when Mark replaced his brother against England in the 1990-91 season.

Waugh's fate in the forthcoming Ashes series had been the major debate in Australian cricket this week.

Steve Waugh and John Buchanan, the Australian coach, had both insisted that he be retained, but he had averaged 35 or less in his last four series, without scoring a hundred in his last 12 Tests since his 120 at The Oval in 2001. In that time, Waugh made only four fifties, although his average (30.47) exceeded his brother's (28.00) in the same period. Mark's scores were: 0, 12, 42, 86, 2, 74, 34, 19, 53, 25, 16, 45, 30, 55, 0, 2 and 23.

"Having been left out of the current Test team and the one-day team earlier this year, I feel my chances of playing for Australia at age 37 have led me to this decision," Waugh said. "While I feel very disappointed not to be playing for Australia again, I've been extremely lucky to have played for so long in such a great era of Australian cricket."

One of the most elegant batsmen in international cricket in the last decade, Waugh played 128 Tests making 8029 runs at an average of 41.82, with 20 hundreds. He was a matchwinner when fielding at slip, taking 181 catches with a typical nonchalance that made difficult chances look easy. He was also an useful offspinner.

Reacting to his comeback to Tests after four years, Lehmann said: "I am obviously sad for Mark who has been such a great player for Australia for so many years but at the same time I am delighted and very grateful to get another chance at Test level. I'm not getting any younger, so I have got to make every post a winner and play as well as I possibly can."

"Darren has been the next cab off the rank for the last three or four tours," said Trevor Hohns, Australia's chairman of selectors. "It's only natural that he warrants this opportunity."

The squad
1 Matthew Hayden, 2 Justin Langer, 3 Ricky Ponting, 4 Darren Lehmann, 5 Steve Waugh (capt), 6 Damien Martyn, 7 Adam Gilchrist (wk), 8 Shane Warne, 9 Andy Bichel, 10 Jason Gillespie, 11 Glenn McGrath, 12 Brett Lee.

© Wisden CricInfo Ltd