Tag Archives: matthew hayden

Poor Matthew Hayden

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Last year’s runners-up Chennai Super Kings may end up as the best team not able to qualify for the knock out round. They have lost 3 matches now without embarrassing themselves, giving up by 19 runs, 9 runs and 6 wickets respectively. Today, they were able to prolong the match into the final over, and if they had a Kamran Khan-style last over, they may have awarded themselves two points.

As it is, they are now struggling to keep themselves among the Big Four. With three points from five games, they are astonishingly close to the hapless Bangalore Royal Challengers. Assuming that tomorrow’s match goes against the Rajasthanis, we are very close to seeing the semifinal lineup: Deccan, Delhi, Mumbai and Punjab. Of course, with Warne and Dhoni as two captains of the struggling teams, anything may happen.

The saddest person has to be Matthew Hayden who has been excellent in all the games so far. His scores so far has been 44, 65, 51 and 49, making him the leading run maker by some margin, and definitely the most consistent one. But three of his innings have been in vain as Chennai crumbled to defeats. And he was not rewarded for his 65, the Man of the Match going to Murali for his 3-wicket haul. What must also be galling for Hayden is that he would not be playing in the IPL today if he had the same form a few months ago and prevented his retirement from international cricket.

Here is the latest look at the Points/Match table:

Team                          Points/Match   Net Run Rate

Deccan Chargers               2.00           +1.33
Delhi Daredevils              2.00           +0.68
Mumbai Indians                1.25           +1.65
Kings XI Punjab               1.00           +0.27
Rajasthan Royals              0.75           -1.70
Chennai Super Kings           0.60           +0.70
Kolkata Knight Riders         0.60           -2.01
Bangalore Royal Challengers   0.40           -0.60

Rajasthan Royals has a slight edge because they have played one fewer game. But if they lose tomorrow, they join Chennai and Kolkata. The Net Run Rate is another evidence that Chennai has not been performing badly – they have a better NRR than both Delhi and Punjab. On the NRR basis, the team to beat is Mumbai. Remember that they had one match washed away and they only lost to Deccan by 12 runs.

[Photo licensed from WTL]

Haydos Finally Goes

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Matthew Hayden

Matthew Hayden

Matthew Hayden finally quits after a poor year. Funny how quickly these things turn around. Last year, when Australia beat India at home, he was one of the best performers with 3 centuries in 3 matches. The one game he didn’t play was the one that Australia lost. Hayden’s main problem was his age. If he had been younger, there would have been time for a comeback. Also, the fact that Australia lost 2 series to major opponents means that some people have to go. 

Knocking off Hayden from the ODI team meant that the Australian cricket board had already made his decision to drop him from Tests. They probably did not want a situation where he played well in ODI’s and be forced to take him to South Africa, where he could fail in Tests. That would prevent another person from gaining Test opener experience on the SA tour to prepare for the away Ashes later this year.

So Ricky Ponting is the last one standing from the great Australian teams of the recent past. What a list: Warne, McGrath, Langer, Gilchrist and now Hayden. Ponting is also growing old, though he is still 4 years younger than Hayden and still hitting 2 centuries in a single Test. Ponting’s biggest challenge would be to keep Australia winning and help the new players gain experience.

Cricinfo had a weird photo of Matthew Hayden up on its front page all day long (a small part of the photo is shown on the right). Looks like a calibrated snub.

Two Good Debuts

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David Warner made a great debut for Australia scoring 89 runs from 43 balls to help Australia win the 1st T20 against South Africa. In New Zealand, Martin Guptill hit a century, but weather robbed him of a victory in his first game. A great start for new talent in the two teams.

Warner’s success means greater competition for batting spots in the Australian team. Although no one on the official side is saying that Matthew Hayden is out of the reckoning for the SA tour, his omission from the ODI team means that there is a great opportunity for someone to break into the Test team.

Throwing Someone out from the Team

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Try to imagine this: You add a new batsman to the team and then allow him to play 8 Tests. He is out for a golden duck twice and makes a total of 297 runs at an average of 21 runs per Test. Or take another batsman who plays 10 Tests scoring a grand total of 324 runs at an average of 18 runs per Test. Would you retain these two batsman in your team? 

The two batsmen are Hayden and Dravid respectively. And because their names are Hayden and Dravid, they are still in the Australian and Indian teams. If they were debutants, they would have been dropped after the first few innings, even perhaps after their first Test. And the reason is obvious: These are proven batsmen going through a bad phase and you need to give them some time to work through whatever issues they are facing.

But this brings about a dilemma: How much time should you give them? And are you willing to risk a few losses while you are waiting? The problem is, of course, you don’t know if a player is in a slump until they miss out on 4-5 consecutive Tests. It is also not evident if the slump starts in the middle of a series (in which the player had started out strongly).

The best case scenario is that the batsman finally recovers his groove and starts making significant scores, thus repaying the faith of the selectors. Unfortunately, it can also happen that the player just makes enough not to get kicked out of the team. For example, Dravid made a century after his 10-Test drought, thus quieting his critics for a while. But in his next innings, he got out for a zero after blocking 19 balls. Apparently, whatever form he had in his first innings did not last long enough.

This kind of situation where a player has an extended run in the Test side despite mediocre output is very bad for the long-term health of the team. You don’t get the chance to introduce new players and provide them enough exposure. And older players in your first-class leagues never get called to the international team, providing you less of a backup in the case of injuries, which are increasing in these days of heavy cricket schedules.

South Africa Are Number One

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It was hardly a contest at all. The South Africans brushed aside Australia’s meagre target in quick time and now have a legitimate claim to be No. 1 in Test cricket. Australia has simply been outclassed by a superior team with a captain who leads from the front.

What’s next for Australia? You have to go back a long way before you found a series where Australia played a dead rubber where they had already been beaten. This should spell the end for Matthew Hayden, a great batsman of the past, but reduced to irrelevance in this series. Perhaps he will resign instead of being outed by the selectors.

Hussey aside, the rest of the batting seems okay. Unfortunately, they do not seem to be coming together in unison to post huge scores. Australia’s main problem, though, is their toothless bowling that is encouraging to the other Test teams. They may be well advised to try out different bowling options in the next Test.

Though the series is lost, Australia do have a chance at redemption. They have an away series against the South Africans and if they can come up with a much improved performance, they can reclaim their throne.

As for South Africa, what a team. The right mix of experience and young talent including the debutant Duminy. A superb strike bowler in Steyn. An inspiring captain in Graeme Smith. We should have guessed that they were meant for great things on this tour, by the way Smith closed his mouth about his opponents and let his bat do the talking.