Subcontinental batsmen as selfish?

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Hayden brands subcontinental batsmen as selfish
Wisden Cricinfo staff
August 24, 2004

Matthew Hayden feels that subcontinental teams suffer as a result of their batsmen hunting down personal landmarks instead of thinking of their team’s targets. This, according to Hayden, is in direct contrast to the Australian approach.

Hayden, speaking to The Melbourne Age, said, "In one-day cricket, if you get to 70 or 80, you can obviously get a hundred by just batting carefully. But we just don’t do that. It affects a batsman’s statistics, but we just don’t go for those personal marks.

“But countries like India suffer from that. We back ourselves against those countries because they’ll get two or three players in the 70s and beyond, and they’ll be eyeing off that personal landmark and it’ll cost their side 40 or 50 runs as a result. Pretty much all the subcontinental sides are like that. They really can waste a lot of time, and there’s no time to waste. Every ball has got to have a priority stamp on it.”

Hayden made this comparison while looking back on his one-day career since cementing his place in the Australian side in the start of the 2002 season. Though his average in one-day internationals (42.08) is nearly 16 points less than his fantastic average in Tests, Hayden has made important contrubutions in big matches. “In one-day cricket,” he continued, “the so-called landmarks like fifties and hundreds are not achieved at the same rate as in Tests, particularly in our side. In one-day cricket, it’s partnerships that can really hurt a side and set up the other.”

While on the topic of partnerships, Hayden reflected on the 110-run stand that he shared with Adam Gilchrist in the World Cup final at Johannesburg, which set the launching pad for Ricky Ponting and Damien Martyn. “Our partnership was 110 in just a bit over 10 overs. The batting awards would have gone to Punter and Marto, and deservedly so, but Gilly and I were really pleased to have built the foundations at real good pace. That helps us a lot more than the statistic of someone getting a hundred.”

However, Hayden has squandered several chances against lesser teams like Zimbabwe and Kenya and that remains his main regret with regard to his one-day career. Australia played four games in the World Cup against lower-ranked teams but Hayden managed just one half-century. He intends to make up for that in the forthcoming ICC Champions Trophy.

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Is it a matter of sour grapes since the ODI batting statistics are dominated by Asians. Or is there a point in his comments. At times yes some players do slow down to reach their landmark. Which ones com to your mind ?

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i think that he is both right as well as wrong....

every player has the right to go for his personal landmarks.....there is nothing wrong with it...but he should be aware that he is playing for the team...if he is on 70 or 80, and they have lot of wickets, and they need to accelerate the score, then definitely, the batsman needs to sacrifice his landmark and go for the big shots....but if there are lot of overs remaining, then he can play his cautious game and let the other man take the burden of hitting fours and sixes....

i think, hayden is hinting more towards the indian batsman (ppl like sachin and ganguly)....

and btw, what makes u think that the grapes are sour...he is a kind of batsman, who has proven himself to the world (over and over again)....the average of 40+ in ODI has always been highly esteemed by any critic...and i dont think that he was trying to cover up for his 16 points deficiency...but yes, he did get a bit carried away by making these remarks abt the asians.....what to do....its not his fault...he was taught in the australian acedamies, that team comes first....

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It could be Indian's problem. hamara tou koi opener half-century maare tou team aur qaum shukrane ke nafil parhtay hain. It really does not apply on our team. Long gone are the days when we had players reaching land marks. Its a greet to see such performances.

For India, it can be a half truth. With super-star culture that has developed in India due to their history's best batting line up, this can be expected. But it has not saturated yet, team spirit and win is a must as there is a billion ppl pressure on them for wins. Individual brilliance also counts these days (specially in India) due to some marketing requirements.

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I kinda agree with him but then again also disagree with him because I dont think its only asian teams that do it.. I have seen players from England, WI and southa african slowing down just to complete a personal landmark.. Perhaps Hayden was hinting towards Indian batsmen cuz I think most indian batsmen do it all the times, very few paki players do it but most of them are very young and inexperienced so one could give them a break as they are trying to achieve something to cement their spots in the team.. I dont think there is any reason why senior batsmen should do it, like tendulkar, ganguly, inzi or youhana..

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:rocketup:

Let Yohanna do it. He has not shown any landmark for ages!!

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tendlia is one good example of hayden's comments....
lara's 400 also proves the point....

but not all players do that....
many players sacrifice personal glory for the team....

while australian players build their avergaes on consistent performances (bevan has an odi avergae of 50+ and just one or two centuries), asian players, in my opinion, derive their averages from big scores patched in among clusters of 20s and 30s....

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by knightofhearts: *
its not his fault...he was taught in the australian acedamies, that team comes first....
[/QUOTE]
That too. And the other thing they teach their cricketers in the 'australian acedamies' [sic] is how to mouth off against other teams. With time, Hayden may make Waugh proud.

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I do think Indian players such as Sachin and Dravid have valued personal goals over team ones. He plays and understands cricket, I think I can take his perspective in stride. However, it is not just Asia, as the likes of Lara are notorious for the same thing. Aussies and South Africans do play for country more than records.

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Lets streamline this further,and we see Pakistani Players are also in that catagory,we should then automatically discard the other teams, whether their players do it or not, and concentrate on the issues concerning Pakistan only.

No use in wasting time by finger pointing to India,Sri Lanka etc,

Yes I agree with it. This is the reason that more teams like India are hiring specialist shrinks to work with thier players, Pakistan is yet to adopt this and must do so professionally, sighs such kaha hai buzurgoun nay “Taleem he taleem hasil kerna sekhati hai,taleem kay bohat say roop hotain hain”,:rolleyes:

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hummmmm… Indian TEST series is 2 month away and mind game started. You know aussies are good at it.Hayden is taking a shot at Indian batsmen and here comes one from Ganguly.
By the way I agree with what hayden said.You never see AUS cribbing if Captain declares an Inning when batsmen was on 280 or 195 :wink:

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Ganguly and Ponting play mind games
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Ashish Shukla | August 24, 2004 16:26 IST

India and Australia might be slated to clash in a Test series only later in the year, but the mind games are already on with Ricky Ponting declaring that Indians would not find Shane Warne an easy proposition when they tour the sub-continent in October.

“Shane has not done well on the last two tours to India but I know for a fact he was battling a few niggles in the body. But now he is in top shape, the ball is coming out right from his hands and he sure would be a factor when we tour in October,” said the aggressive Australian captain after the tri-series match with India was abandoned due to rain.

Indian captain Sourav Ganguly acknowledged Warne to be a big enough factor in world cricket but felt his batsmen would take a lot of confidence going into the series because of how they have done in the past against the leg-spinner.

“He is obviously their key bowler. He would make a difference to any side. But we have played him well over the years. Still, he is the kind of bowler who can win matches any day,” he said.

Warne’s return to international cricket after a one-year ban for a positive dope test before the 2003 World Cup has been nothing short of sensational.

He caught up with Sri Lankan spin wizard Muttiah Muralitharan as the leading Test wicket taker for a while and is now poised to overtake the Kandy man who has been ruled out of action for the rest of the year due to a shoulder problem.

Ganguly, who led his side to a Test win in Australia in the last season during the four-match series which resulted in a 1-1 draw, accepted that his side would have to be “up for it” especially in the wake of Australia’s 3-0 whitewash of Sri Lanka in March this year.

“They indeed did well in Sri Lanka and we have to be up for it. Still, we would now be meeting them three times in a year and that’s enough, frankly speaking.”

Indeed, Australians proved that they had adapted brilliantly to the sub-continental conditions of Sri Lanka where Shane Warne made a remarkable return to Test cricket with 26 wickets at 20.03 from the three games.

India and Australia are the biggest draw in world cricket and, despite India’s recent reverses in one-day cricket, they remain a potent side in the longer format of the game.

“We have performed well in Test cricket over the last two years. We hope to do it again when they come to India. I feel we have been good in Test cricket in the last two years,” said Ganguly.

The Australians have not won a series in India since 1969-70 and the burning ambition of their former captain Steve Waugh to conquer the ‘Last Frontier’ remained unfulfilled.
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“We have to really play them to know how it is going to be any different in the absence of Steve Waugh. Steve was a legend and people in India used to respect him. It’s going to be a new side for them with young boys. But you can never take Australia lightly,” :rotfl: Ganguly said. **

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[QUOTE]
Originally posted by fair_&_balance: *
hummmmm.... Indian TEST series is 2 month away and mind game started. You k *
[/QUOTE]

and what an exciting test series would that be.....probably one of the best one.....can"t wait....aus and india......one of the best aussies side ( arguably) and one the best indian side ( without any argument)....these two countries are developing an interesting rivalry.....

waisee by the way i am also waiting for SA/england seires really bad too.....if england beats SA in SA, it will confirm thier prominent status in test cricket....otherwise, Ghaar may to chooha bee sher hotta ha......well sorry, i am off the topic......;

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Batting for yourself
Earlier this week, Matthew Hayden fired a salvo at Indian batsmen, claiming they put personal ambition over the team goal. This remark caused a bit of consternation, considering that India’s batsmen scored fairly quickly. But a closer look at the strike rates of batsmen revealed something entirely new: the way Australian batsmen play one-dayers.

As the strike rates show, Hayden and Adam Gilchrist keep the aggression going all the way. Even Ricky Ponting scores his first 70 at nearly a run a ball, before launching into the bowling as a hundred is on the horizon. It’s not an approach followed by the Indians, who start slowly, but as they approach a hundred, tend to speed up. Perhaps what Hayden meant was that Indians tend to take their time playing themselves in, before accelerating towards the end.

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8.45pm IST – Mental disintegration? Go on, disintegrate

Matthew Hayden’s statement that subcontinental batsmen are selfish and prioritise personal landmarks over team goals has attracted a lot of comment in India over the last couple of days. In The Numbers Game, our Friday column, Rahul Bhatia displays statistics (provided by Arun Gopalakrishnan in our Chennai office) that show that the strike rates of the top Indian batsmen between the scores of 71 and 100 are actually marginally better than that of the top Australian batsmen. (A counterpoint to that, of course, is the fact that Indian batsmen have more centuries than Australian ones, though India win much less.)

Harsha Bhogle, with characteristic honesty, writes in his latest column that there is some truth to what Hayden says. His hypothesis is that “in over-populated, and therefore insecure, countries the self will always dominate … Where you are in a mob, and we are in a mob, self-preservation will always prevail; whether it is catching a bus, or getting out of a movie hall, or getting admission to a professional college.”

Bhogle explains how it is impossible for a cricketer in India to rise to the top without playing for personal landmarks, and how “it is not easy to change; leopards in every profession are stuck with their spots.”

Hayden, if he reads all this, must find it extremely funny. When Australians say bad things about their opponents, they do not always mean it, and are often just playing a game of mental disintegration, as Steve Waugh famously put it. Hayden doesn’t care if Indian batsmen are selfish or not – but he would love to have their minds fret about things other than the game at hand during an encounter. The next time India play Australia and an Indian batsman crosses 80, you can bet that the Aussies will sledge him about his selfishness, trying to induce him into a rash shot.

With Australia due to tour India shortly, expect more such statements from the Australians. Glenn McGrath, famously for targeting an opposition batsman before a series, will probably pick Virender Sehwag. And many more snide comments will be made about the Indians, to put demons in their minds. Here are a few (untrue) statements that the Australians might well already have short-listed.

  1. Sehwag’s batting is too aggressive, and we’ll just wait for him to throw his wicket away.
  2. Sourav Ganguly would not be in the Indian side if he wasn’t the captain. OR Ganguly can’t play the short ball.
  3. VVS Laxman can’t run between the wickets in one-dayers. We plan to keep him at the crease so the scoring-rate slows down.
  4. Sachin Tendulkar is no longer the same player he once was. Warnie’s got his number.
  5. Yuvraj Singh can’t play spin. Warnie’s got his number too.
  6. Harbhajan Singh’s doosra is suspect. OR Harbhajan’s success in the last series was a fluke.
  7. Parthiv Patel’s a kid. He can’t concentrate through an entire day of Test cricket.
  8. Anil Kumble is past his best. We’re not worried about him.

Now, none of these are true. But imagine you’re Yuvraj, and Ricky Ponting lets out statement No. 5, and then you’re playing Shane Warne in a Test – isn’t it just possible that the allegations could be playing on your mind, and you might be over-aggressive or over-cautious as a result? And over-anything is a victory for the Australians.

So how do you counter such mental disintegration? Oh, Sourav knows how. He’ll just keep Ponting waiting at the toss.

Bhogle column