MELBOURNE, Oct 4: Australia Test captain Steve Waugh, the sport’s most-capped player, has hinted he will retire in the next 12 months after a final attempt at winning a series in India.

“You always want to go out on a good note,” The 38-year-old Waugh told reporters in Perth.

“I’m not exactly sure when it’s going to be, but it’s a good chance that this will be the last time I play in Perth.”

Waugh will lead Test cricket’s top-ranked side in a two-match series against Zimbabwe starting in Perth on Oct 9, followed by the second Test in Sydney on Oct 17-21.

Australia will also host a four-Test series against India in December and January in Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney.

India will host Australia in September next year as Waugh tries to claim an Australia series victory there for the first time since Bill Lawry’s team won 3-1 in 1969-70.

A defiant Waugh has hit

four centuries in his past seven Tests including his remarkable hundred in the fifth Ashes

Test against England in Sydney.

Unwanted by national selectors for the World Cup, Waugh’s test future was also the subject of much public debate before the fifth Test.

Waugh crashed a boundary through cover from the final ball of the second day’s play, equalling Don Bradman’s national record of 29 Test hundreds.

Waugh has scored 32 centuries, two behind the world mark of India’s Sunil Gavaskar.

The Australian’s record of 10,521 runs at an average of 51.07 in 162 Tests is second only to his former Test captain Allan Border’s 11,174 runs in 156 matches.—Reuters