![\"\"](\"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Mathew-Hayden-tribute-2.jpg\")
\nWhile you felt possibly sorry for Mathew Hayden, you were somewhere compelled to laud his spirit. At the same time, you sensed a child-like madness in the Queenslander. It was as if, he was being stupidly adamant in wanting to flirt with mortal danger. And yet, it beautifully evoked memories of a time when the 47-year-old flirted with the danger of dancing down to fast bowlers, often inside the first five or ten overs of an ODI.
\nBut to be frank, if there was anyone who could pull off something outlandish and convincingly so such as walking down to a fast bowler- a feeling equivalent of an unpardonable crime in the eyes of a bowler- it was Mathew Hayden. He did that time and again to everyone. In fact, it didn’t matter who bowled to him; Srinath or Pollock, Walsh or Shoaib, Bond or Prasad.
\nTo that extent, no tribute to Mathew Hayden could ever be complete without reminding everyone that blokes like Gayle, Sehwag came later and did things one found unimaginable while the truth is they were doing for the first time in their careers what Hayden had done years earlier.
\nGood ball- hit it.<\/p>\n
An uncomplicated approach<\/h2>\n
And, what about the bad ball? Hit it even more. Does it not? But Hayden, no monk when unleashing himself regardless of who he was against- Pollock, Walsh, Srinath, Harbhajan, Akram, Shoaib, Bond- was a bit of a quiet man when batting. Over a fortnight ago, there emerged a picture on the Internet of an injured cricketer. It showed a rusty, haggard-looking man wrapped in a neck bandage, his skull swollen with splinters of blood on the forehead. It was awful. You did wonder, after all, how on earth did the man manage the effort to post […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[542],"tags":[1501,1502,1503,1504,1505],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6540"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nYet, Hayden retained a sense of method to the madness that personified his batting. He wasn’t merely a bowler destroyer. He was a cunning executioner of the pacers and spinners alike, someone who liked a good contest, someone who was spurred by the challenge of a great contest; someone who held one end on his own as Australians faltered repetitively versus India in 2001.
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Hayden-sweep-2.jpg\")
\nHe was someone who derived pleasure from breaking Lara’s record as much as he sought comfort in forging countless hundred-run partnerships with Justin Langer.
\nHad he only been a mad hitter of the ball, the underlining feeling you still sense as you probably visit him ripping apart Zimbabwe in a YouTube run of his 380, he wouldn’t have ended with 40 international centuries and nearly 15000 runs.
\nThat Mathew Hayden was shredding the white and red ball to tiny crumbled pieces much earlier than AB explored his 360-degree range on the field carries a sense of gratification in revisiting nostalgia as much as it excites the Aussie fan at a time where his current team is letting everyone down.<\/p>\nContributor to Australia’s rich feats<\/h2>\n
\nIt also at the same time tells us just why were Australia of the 90s-to-mid 2000s described as a mighty unit?
\nWhy would it not be so with a giant called Mathew Hayden in the ranks?
\nYet what’s most interesting is to perhaps delve into a sort of unattempted examination of Mathew Hayden’s greatness. Was he a puzzle for bowlers or the most committed opening batsman of his day, one who stuck mightily well to his craft, a bit like those Kallis-esque<\/em> biceps that hugged his broad-chested frame and daunting physicality?
\nThere’s a mystery surrounding Hayden provided one cares to reflect beyond the large sixes and carefully executed square drives.
\nHe was not a Test purist but excelled in the format, going as far as breaking Lara’s 375. He was not the greatest ODI bat, but one who clubbed 30 centuries in the format and ended up at an average of over 50.
\nFor someone who often dented the first nail in Australia’s opponents’ coffin by engaging in mass murder with the bat, dampening the morale of the best bowlers, Hayden remained a bit of an enigma. Opening batsmen didn’t always meditate on the wicket, spend hours reflecting possibly on their own flaws on the 22 yards before the start of a contest.<\/p>\nWhat one can learn from Matt Hayden<\/h2>\n
\nHe didn’t need to sledge. He didn’t need to resort to vile ways of hurling abuses or resorting to mind-games or engaging in pre-game shenanigans to bully those for whom his bat was enough.
\nThat Matt Hayden was an utterly competitive cricketer but also one who admired the feats of his contemporaries pays a homage to this behemoth cricket enjoyed witnessing in full flow and bowlers dreaded facing. It’s something that the contemporary unit can revisit to understand the meaning of pure domination in the middle as much as what the would-be faces in bright yellows can stick to, to further the bastion of cricketing excellence that is Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"