‘100%, at any time of the day or night’ – Matthew Hayden vouches to help the Australian batters tackle Indian conditions

Published on February 21, 2023

The Border Gavaskar Trophy has already been retained by India after demolishing Australia in the first two Tests. India were firm favourites to win the series and retain the Trophy but nobody expected it to be done within the first two Tests itself. Every cricket fan around the world would have expected some sort of a fight from the Australian team but they never showed up.

Australia’s tendency to give away their wickets to spinners is at the forefront and the Indian spin duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja have scalped 31 of the 40 Australian wickets. The shot selection by the Australian batters hasn’t been great either, and have given away their wickets cheaply without doing much.

Matthew Hayden wants to help the Australian Batters

Matthew Hayden, the former Australian opener, while speaking to Sydney Morning Herald, claimed that he would be ready to help out the Australian batters tackle the Indian conditions. He said, “100%, at any time of the day or night, it is a given that I myself — and I’m sure I speak for anyone else that I represent that would have that kind of influence — would 100% be in. Any time I have been asked to do anything I’ve always said yes at any time of day.”

Hayden asks Cricket Australia to involve more former players like him in the system to grow cricket in the country. He said, “You can’t alienate them (former players). If you want the creme de la creme, the very least you can do is respect them. There should be a system if you’re in the CA role, how do we get the intellectual property in our players? That’s the key.”

The former opener then talks about the role of Andrew Mcdonald and how he needs to tell the players to choose their priority. He said, “This is where I really don’t envy the role of Andrew McDonald. He has to work out what is the priority in terms of his playing group of which he has zero per cent control over a two-month period because of IPL.”