Hayden has been Team India’s biggest tormentor, scoring runs at will. On the ground preparations suggest he’s hungrier than ever this series
Hayden has been Team India’s biggest tormentor, scoring runs at will. On the ground preparations suggest he’s hungrier than ever this series
BANGALORE: There’s something about India that fires Matthew Hayden up. It could be the food, the wickets, or even Harbhajan Singh.
Hayden has already hinted at the fact that the Indian bowlers always fire him up to perform at his best. “As you know, over the years those kind of tensions have always made me play better, and I will certainly be using that to my advantage,”
Hayden was quoted as saying in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Competitive juices apart, he’s also probably stirred by the memory of success — incredible success. In the 14 Test matches that he has played against India, Hayden has scored 1654 runs at an average of 66.16. In India, that average is 61, from 7 matches and 793 runs.
From just another player in the annals of Australian cricket, Hayden became the force he today during the Australian team’s tour of India in the summer of 2001. The series marked the rise of one of the greatest openers Australia and world cricket will ever see.
The 36-year-old Queenslander made a staggering 549 runs then, an Australian record for a three-Test series. This was at an average of 109.80.
Inevitably then, as the Australian team practiced for the first time at the Chinnaswamy Stadium before the first Test match against India, all eyes were on him. But Hayden, oblivious of all the attention, seemed focused on the job ahead. An intense practice session unfolded, starting with catching, after which, he headed for the players’ enclosure and was seen exercising his leg muscles in a unique way, by using a cardboard box as weight. Subsequently, he sat in the balcony of the dressing
room, a cup of tea in hand and strategy on his mind.
Hayden has always been on the top of his game when playing against India, be it scoring with the bat or warring with words.
And aware of the fact that the team seriously needed his contribution in this series, especially in the absence of the other thorn in the Indian flesh Andrew Symonds, he was seen putting in more time at the nets as compared to the rest.
He first faced the Australian bowlers, then the local bowlers, and eventually facing the bowling machine. The bad news: not a foot was out of place.
Undoubtedly, the Hayden factor is something that the Indian team has definitely taken into consideration while preparing for the series, but they do not want to underestimate the other Australian batsmen either.
As Sourav Ganguly said, “Hayden no doubt has got a superb record against India, but they also have Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke and Michael Hussey, who are good players of spin. They are not the best side in the world for nothing.”
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