Cummins the conductor in Boxing Day Test for the ages

Life rarely meets expectation. At around this time each year, those realisations come knocking with increasing frequency.

- Jack Snape

Yes, you are fatter, poorer, wrinklier and less well-read than you would like to be. That fleeting aspiration in high school, that you might travel the world, or make a difference: for most, sorry to say, the optimism was misplaced.

So when a match of cricket delivers far beyond what fans could dream, it is worth celebrating. There can be no doubt that the Boxing Day Test between Australia and India was among sport's finest moments. The most culturally significant annual sporting event in Australia, bringing together two rivals, ebbing and flowing right down to the ultimate hour of the final day. A victory that will for ever now be associated with captain Pat Cummins and his peers, a loss sure to motivate a new generation of Indian cricketers.

On Monday the Guardian published a list online of Australia's 10 biggest sporting moments of 2024. Although the calendar wouldn't allow it, the article needed to wait another day. This five-day cricketing spectacular was at times funnier than Raygun. Fresher than Gout Gout. Tougher than the Blues. Slyer than a Fox. Certainly, more unpredictable than Angeball.