Mark Waugh

Mark Edward Waugh (born 2 June 1965) is an Australian cricket commentator and former international cricketer, who represented Australia in Test matches from early 1991 to late 2002, after previously making his One Day International (ODI) debut in 1988.

Born on 2 June 1965 at Canterbury Hospital in Campsie, New South Wales, Waugh was the second of twin boys born to Rodger and Beverley Waugh.

He arrived four minutes after Steve.

His father was a bank official and his mother was a teacher within the New South Wales Department of Education.

The family settled in the western Sydney suburb of Panania.

The twins were later joined by two more brothers, Dean and Danny.

From an early age, the parents introduced their children to sport.

By the age of six, the twins were playing organised soccer, tennis and cricket.

In their first cricket match, the brothers were both dismissed for ducks.

The twins came from a sporting family.

Their paternal grandfather Edward was a greyhound trainer.

Raised in the northern coastal town of Bangalow, Edward earned selection for the New South Wales Country team in rugby league.

He was about to join Eastern Suburbs in the New South Wales Rugby League, but had to give up his career due to family reasons.

Rodger was Edward's only son and was promising tennis player, who was ranked eighth in Australia in his junior years and was the state champion at under-14 level.

On the maternal side, Bev was a tennis player who won the under-14 singles at the South Australian Championships.

Her eldest brother Dion Bourne was an opening batsman who played for Bankstown in Sydney Grade Cricket and remains the leading runscorer in the club's history.

The twins made their first representative cricket team when they were selected the Bankstown District under-10s at the age of eight.

In 1976, the twins were the youngest ever to be selected in the New South Wales Primary Schools' soccer team.

Playing for Panania Primary School, the twins swept their school to win the Umbro International Shield, a statewide knockout soccer competition, scoring all of their team's three goals in the final.

They were a key part of their school's consecutive state cricket championships and were part of school tennis team that came second in the state in their final year.

His three centuries at the 1996 Cricket World Cup made him the first batsman to ever achieve this feat, with the record later equaled by Indian captain Sourav Ganguly at the 2003 Cricket World Cup.

Waugh was a part of the Australian team that won the 1999 Cricket World Cup.

Waugh is younger than his twin brother Steve Waugh by a few minutes.

Dean Waugh, another of Mark's brothers, is also a cricketer, having played both first-class and List A cricket in Australia for New South Wales.

His nephew and Steve's son, Austin Waugh, was selected in the Australian under-19 team.

A fourth century in the 1999 Cricket World Cup made him the only Australian to score four centuries and more than 1000 runs in World Cup competition.

He also became the leading Australian run-scorer and century maker in ODIs during the 1999 tournament as well.

Waugh is regarded as one of the most elegant and gifted stroke makers to ever play the game and his stylish strokeplay was likened to that of Stan McCabe, Alan Kippax, Victor Trumper, Charlie Macartney and Greg Chappell.

Following his debut Test century, Australian coach Bob Simpson compared Waugh's elegance to that of Archie Jackson.

Mark Taylor called Waugh the "best-looking leg-side player I've seen in my time. . . anything drifting into his pads is hit beautifully."

His facile grace also led to accusations that he was a "lazy" batsman who was vulnerable to soft dismissals.

Waugh is the younger fraternal twin brother of Steve Waugh, with whom he played for most of his career and also under his captaincy.

They hold the record for the most Test and ODI matches in which siblings appeared together.

Waugh is regarded as one of the best slip fielders ever to play cricket and held the world record for most Test catches by a non-wicketkeeper until Rahul Dravid broke it in 2009.

He began as an all-rounder in the Australian ODI team, but he later focussed on batting and progressed to opening the batting, where he excelled and became Australia's leading one day runscorer.

He was previously a national selector, holding that position until August 2018.

On 15 May 2018, he announced his intentions to swap national selector duties for a TV commentating role with Fox Sports.

Waugh was primarily a right-handed batsman who batted in the No. 4 position in Test matches.

He was also a handy medium pace bowler, but changed to an off-spin bowler after back injuries restricted him.

This record was later broken by India's Rohit Sharma in 2019 Cricket World Cup with 5 centuries.