- Inspired from this thread *
And I say this with all due regard - watching Matthew Hayden last night was similar to hitting a near-perfect home-run, coupled with a delightful surprise. His comeback in the side and the inclusion for the next three One-Day Internationals has rather been a nice welcome, for all cricket fans. One fine timer of the ball, as I remember him from his pervious era where he quite finitely took every bowler to the cleaners, brought him back from the cleaners and then sent him home packing. Tell you, watching him yesterday and his stance at the crease - muscular built, lean shoulders, a tall hefty size bearing the eyes of a hungry eagle - he played with anything and everything in his path. Looked very determined, mind you. And even though the ball wasn’t really coming onto his bat as nicely as he would have liked, he was desperate to get his groove back. Started with a bit of his new self by going straight into a shell making a vow as to never experience the daylights again as he looked to fine-tune his game for the rest of the tournament, but as soon as Hussey arrived at the crease, the entire game plan changed. One of the great abilities I love about this team is that they scamper through for singles at every given opportunity - sometimes pushing the opposition into a corner - and then letting them loose, before coming back strongly. He half-way danced down the track in the initial stages to belt the cheery for boundaries over mid-on, but was having a hard time with his timing and with his placement of putting the ball into empty field areas. With the arrival of his captain, he not only continued to thrash boundaries but also looked for singles while constantly rotating the scoreboard, which, at that time, I felt as if he really needed his captain on his side, and he got just that. The manner in which he was dismissed, however, the opposition might think that they have found a sneaker right through him - caught at backward square leg - and they may just have. We’ll have to wait and see if the likes of mastermind Asif - quick on his feet - can deliver a short rising ball with him halfway down the track, but rest assured, giving credit where it is due - rejoicing to see him back in the side.
One of the quotes that pretty much sums up his cricketing personality as a whole. Lovely read, the whole article was; from which a tiny excerpt below:
- “The reason Australian cricket is so strong is because blokes like me are sitting on the fringe after having played 120 games of one-day cricket, and still looking to play, still looking to train hard and perform every game. Now, if a senior player can be in that position, what’s that saying to a junior player?”*