Australians were at the heart of two of the biggest cricketing stories of 2006.Controversial umpire Darrell Hair was banned after Pakistan blamed him squarely for their forfeiture of the Oval Test against England in August.
And Australia's world champion team proved the strongest of the year, winning eight out of eight Tests (so far) and clinching the Champions Trophy, the only one-day title to have previously eluded it.
Pakistan became the first country in Test history to forfeit a match after refusing to take the field after tea on the fourth day against England.
Hair, no stranger to controversy, and fellow umpire Billy Doctrove had penalised Pakistan for alleged ball tampering, docking them five runs and changing the ball.
In a move which divided world cricket, Hair was sacked from the International Cricket Council's (ICC) elite panel of umpires.
Pakistan captain Inzaman-ul-Haq was cleared of ball tampering although the ICC banned him for four one-day internationals for bringing the game into disrepute.
In a difficult year for Pakistan, their fast bowlers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammed Asif became the first international cricketers to test positive for performance-enhancing drugs.
Shoaib and Asif were banned from cricket in November after testing positive for nandrolone but were cleared a month later when a Pakistan tribunal ruled they had not received sufficient warning that supplements they were taking could be contaminated by the banned steroid.
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