MATTHEW HAYDEN

'Matthew Lawrence Hayden' (born 29 October, 1971 in Kingaroy, Queensland to Laurence and Moya Hayden) is an Australian and Queensland cricketer.

Contents

Cricket career

Test career

ODI

UK County

Trivia

External links

Cricket career

Hayden (nicknames: ''Haydos'', ''Unit'') is a powerful and aggressive left hand opening batsman, known for his ability to score quickly at both Test and one day levels. He is particularly proficient when hitting down the ground. Hayden currently holds the records for the highest scores made by an Australian batsman in both the Test (380) and One Day International (181 not out) arenas. [1] He formed one of the most prolific opening partnerships in world test cricket for Australia with Justin Langer, and is currently partnered by Adam Gilchrist at the top of the Australian One Day International team.

Test career

Hayden debuted for the Australian team in the 1994 March 4-8^th test match against South Africa in Johannesburg, scoring 15 and 5 ^[1]. After this Test his next Test selection was in the 1996/7 season, with 3 tests each against the West Indies and South Africa. Although he made his debut century (125 against WI in Adelaide) his average of 21.7 was not enough to keep his position in a star-packed Australian side, and in particular openers Mark Taylor and Michael Slater. He was dropped from the team, and it appeared his international career was over.
During these years Hayden was a prolific batsman for the Queensland first-class cricket team. Weight of domestic cricket runs and persistence resulted in a resurrection of his international career for the 1999/2000 tour of New Zealand. In the subsequent 2000/1 tour of India he averaged a Bradmanesque 109.80 with 539 runs from the 3 test series. Since then he has been an automatic selection for the Test side.
In 2001 he scored a then Australian record of 1391 runs in Test matches in one calendar year, and subsequently won the Allan Border Medal as the best Australian player of the year. Hayden scored over 1000 Test runs in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 & 2005, the first man to achieve the feat five times. Hayden was selected as one of Wisden's five 2003 Cricketers of the Year. He briefly held the world record for the highest Test score, 380, which he scored at the WACA against Zimbabwe on 10 October 2003. Brian Lara of the West Indies reclaimed the record with 400 not out against England on April 12, 2004. Of note, at the commencement of 2006 he had the fourth highest conversion rate (Test centuries scored per Test played) in history, behind only Don Bradman, George Headley and Clyde Walcott.
He has also been a regular slip fielder for Australia and has taken the 13th most catches by non-wicketkeepers in test history. He also shares the record for the most catches by a non-wicketkeeper in a test match with seven catches against Sri Lanka in 2004. His most notable fielding partnership has been with Shane Warne, with the ''caught Hayden, bowled Warne'' dismissal being the equal third most common partnership for a non-wicketkeeper with 39 wickets, behind ''caught Taylor, bowled Warne'' and ''caught Dravid, bowled Kumble.

ODI

Hayden also played in the Australian side that won the 2003 One Day International Cricket World Cup. He was dropped from the ODI squad because of poor form after The Ashes in 2005, though he could not be kept away from the ODI squad for long. He returned to the Australian squad in the 2006-07 Australian season after Damien Martyn, Australia's leading runscorer at the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy retired. He dominated the Cricket World Cup in the West Indies as the tournament's best batsman in 2007, scoring three centuries before the completion of the Super 8s section of the tournament.
On February 20th 2007, Matthew Hayden posted his highest ODI score (181 not out) against New Zealand at Seddon Park in Hamilton. Australia posted 346 for 5 wickets and New Zealand replied with 350 for 9 wickets and won the Chappel-Hadlee series 3-0.
Hayden hit another milestone against the Kiwis when he become only the third person (the others being Mark Waugh and Sourav Ganguly) to hit 3 centuries (101 vs RSA, 158 vs WI, 103 vs NZ) in a single world cup tournament on 20th April 2007. Hayden is also only the second player in World Cup history to surpass 600 runs in a single tournament. He needed to score a further 52 runs to equal the record that was set by Sachin Tendulkar in the previous World Cup but fell short by 14 runs. He ended the tournament with 659 runs.

UK County

Hayden has played in the English County Championship, first with Hampshire in 1997 and prominently as captain of Northamptonshire in 1999-2000.

Trivia

★ In 2000, Hayden's boat capsized whilst sailing near North Stradbroke Island; he and his two companions (one of whom was Queensland and Australian teammate Andrew Symonds) were forced to swim a kilometre to safety. [2]

★ On March 24th 2007, at the 2007 Cricket World Cup, Hayden scored the fastest World Cup century against South Africa in just 66 balls. The Prime Minister of St Kitts and Nevis awarded Hayden with honorary citizenship after the match.

★ In his spare time, Hayden is a keen cook and occasionally prepares meals for his team-mates while on tour. A collection of his recipes was published in Australia in 2004 as ''The Matthew Hayden Cookbook''. A second book, ''The Matthew Hayden Cookbook 2'', was published in 2006.

★ Hayden uses a Gray-Nicholls bat with a fluorescent pink grip, to highlight and support research into a cure for breast cancer. This is at least in part inspired by his team-mate Glenn McGrath's wife struggle with this illness. ^[2]

★ Hayden is a devout Catholic and says "When I’m in trouble, I ask: ‘What would Christ do?" [3]

★ He is married to Kellie Hayden (neè Culey), and they have a daughter named Grace, a son named Joshua (born 15 April 2005) and their latest arrival is a son, Thomas Joseph (born May 2007). [4]

★ He shares his birthday with Michael Vaughan, captain of England's Test cricket team.

External links

★ Cricket-Online Player Profile - Matthew Hayden

★ Cricinfo Player Profile : Matthew Lawrence Hayden