Matthew Hayden

Did You Know?

• Hayden captained the Indigenous All-stars XI against the ACA Masters XI in 2010 as part of the Imparja Cup.
• He was appointed by the Queensland Government in March 2013 to head a tourism campaign aimed at attracting more Indian tourists.
• In September 2022, he was appointed as the Pakistan team's mentor for the 2022 T20 World Cup.

Personal life and beyond cricket

Hayden competed in the Gladiator Team Sports Challenge in 1995. His boat capsized near North Stradbroke Island, forcing him and two companions—including Queensland and Australian teammate Andrew Symonds—to swim a kilometre to safety; he later appeared in a marine safety campaign. A keen cook, he occasionally prepared meals for teammates on tour and published two cookbooks: The Matthew Hayden Cookbook (2004) and The Matthew Hayden Cookbook 2 (2006).

He used a Gray-Nicolls bat with a fluorescent pink grip to support breast cancer research, inspired partly by the death of teammate Glenn McGrath's wife from the disease. Hayden is a devout Roman Catholic who said, "When I’m in trouble, I ask: ‘What would Christ do?’" and routinely crossed himself after reaching a century. He was awarded the Australian Sports Medal on 14 July 2000, named a Q150 Icon of Queensland in 2009, and appointed a Member of the Order of Australia on 26 January 2010. He is an Ambassador for the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation.

Domestic career

Hayden played 101 Sheffield Shield matches for Queensland, scoring 8831 runs at 54.85. In English county cricket, he played for Hampshire in 1997 and captained Northamptonshire in 1999–2000, amassing 3461 runs at 55.82. His overall first-class career yielded 24,603 runs at 52.57. In the Indian Premier League, he played for Chennai Super Kings from April 2008, contracted for $375,000, and won the Orange Cap in 2009 as the season's highest run-scorer with 572 runs. For the 2011–12 season, he resigned from his Queensland and Australian cricket board positions to play for the Brisbane Heat in the Big Bash League. In March 2010, he announced he would use the Mongoose Cricket Bat in the 2010 IPL; after a quiet start, he scored 93 off 43 deliveries.

International career

Hayden was selected for the 1993 tour of England alongside Michael Slater, but Slater secured the opening position. Hayden played his first Test in March 1994 against South Africa in Johannesburg, scoring 15 and 5 as a replacement for an injured Mark Taylor. He returned in 1996–97, making his maiden century (125 against the West Indies in Adelaide), but averaged only 24.1 over six Tests and was dropped. After prolific domestic performances, he was recalled for the 1999–2000 tour of New Zealand and the 2000–01 summer against the West Indies, though results were unconvincing.

On the 2001 tour of India, he scored 549 runs at 109.80, an Australian record for a three-Test series. From that point he became an automatic selection, scoring over 1,000 Test runs in each of 2001 through 2005—the first man to do so five times. He was named one of Wisden's five Cricketers of the Year in 2003. On 10 October 2003, he scored 380 from 437 balls against Zimbabwe at the WACA, setting a new world record for an individual Test innings, later surpassed by Brian Lara's 400 not out in April 2004.

As of June 2024, it remains the second-highest Test innings and the highest by an Australian. He was named in the ICC World Test XI for 2004.

Controversies

In the 2003 New Year's Test in Sydney against England, Hayden smashed a pavilion window in anger after disagreeing with an umpire's decision to give him out and was fined. He was a witness in the 2007–08 Border-Gavaskar Trophy racism charges brought by Australia against India, concerning Andrew Symonds's allegations against Harbhajan Singh. In February 2008, Hayden was charged by Cricket Australia for a code of conduct violation after calling Harbhajan Singh an "obnoxious little weed" and inviting Ishant Sharma for a boxing bout during a radio interview; he was reprimanded but maintained his innocence. He was criticised by the BCCI and Wasim Akram for reportedly calling India a third world country, referring to poor ground conditions and delays during a series defeat there, though he defended his remarks.