Factbox on Australia captain Steve Waugh who will retire from international cricket after the final Test against India at Sydney starting on Friday.

Born: June 2, 1965, Sydney. Right-hand bat, occasional right-arm medium-pace bowler.

Test debut: v India, Melbourne, December 1985.

Test record: 167 matches, 10,807 runs, average: 50.97. 100s: 32. Highest score: 200. 92 wickets, average 37.38. Best bowling 5-28. Catches: 112

One-day international record: 325 matches. 7,569 runs, average 32.91, three centuries, 45 half-centuries. Highest score 120 not out. 195 wickets, average 34.67. Best bowling 4-33. Catches: 111.

Played his first Test at age 20 and now the most capped played in Test history with 167 appearances.

The second highest run scorer in Tests with 10,807 runs, behind only Australia's Allan Border (11,174).

The second highest century maker in Tests with 32 hundreds, behind only India's Sunil Gavaskar (34).

Only the second player to score Test centuries against all nine Test-playing opponents. South Africa's Gary Kirsten is the other.

Replaced Mark Taylor as Test captain in 1999 and now the most successful Test captain in history with 41 victories from 56 Tests and a success rate of 73.21 per cent.

Australia's most capped one-day international player with 325 appearances. Was a member of the Australian team that won the World Cup in 1987 then captained Australia to victory in the 1999 World Cup.

Waugh and his twin brother Mark, who played 128 Tests and 244 one-day internationals, shared an unbroken partnership of 464 for the fifth wicket for New South Wales against Western Australia in Perth in 1990-91.

It was a record for any wicket in Australian first-class matches. Waugh also shared a record 385-run stand with Greg Blewett against South Africa in 1996-97.

Waugh played many noteworthy individual innings, including his highest Test score of 200 against the West Indies at Kingston, Jamaica in 1995 to spearhead a series victory, and in Leeds, England in the 1999 World Cup pool match against South Africa when he made 120 not out in a game Australia needed to win to stay alive in the competition.

But his most memorable one was in the final Ashes Test against England in Sydney in January 2003 when he defied his critics with a century to save his Test career.

Surprisingly announced in November that he would retire after the Indian series to spend more time with his family.