Matthew Hayden

Some Lesser Known Facts About Matthew Hayden

• Does Matthew Hayden smoke?: Not Known

• Does Matthew Hayden drink alcohol?: Yes

  

• Matthew Hayden was born and brought up in Kingaroy, Australia. His passion for cricket started when he was just 3-year-old.

• He began his cricketing career at the age of 20. He made his First-Class debut against South Australia for Queensland. In this match, he scored 149 runs.

• Later in 1991, he played his first List A match against West Indies. He smacked only 49 runs, but had successfully made a mark with his striking performance.

• He is a good friend to Glenn McGrath. But in early 1995, they both were involved in an argument. At that time, Australia had a dominant A team, which was involved in a quadrangular series including Australia, Zimbabwe, and England. At the end of the series, Australia A and Australia made it to the final. During the match, this happened:

• In 2000, he went fishing with Andrew Symonds and one another companion, suddenly the boat capsized. They had to swim almost 1 km for 3 hours to reach an Island. After going through this incident, he appeared in a marine safety promotion campaign to rescue people in such situations.

• Australia and India’s 2001 Test series was a remarkable turnaround for Matthew Hayden. Though Australian team lost the series by 2-1, but Matthew’s outstanding performance, where he scored 549 runs at an average of 109.8 in 3 Test matches, helped him in making a permanent place in the team.

•  On 10 October 2003, he played an outstanding 10 hours and 22 minutes Test innings against Zimbabwe at the Western Australia Cricket Association (WACA) ground in Perth and scored the highest score, 380 runs in the Test history after surpassing West Indian Cricketer Brian Lara’s 375 runs record. Within six months, Lara again claimed his record by scoring 400 runs against England in 2004. Here are the quick highlights of Matthew Hayden’s 380 runs innings:

• In the 2007 T20 World Cup, he was the highest run scorer with 265 runs.

• In the same year, he was appointed as an ambassador to World Youth Day event.

• He was the first batsman to use the long handle “Mongoose Bat.” He used it in an IPL match against Delhi Daredevils.

  

• Before playing with a Mongoose bat, he had used a pink grip Gray-Nicolls bat to support and highlight research into a cure for breast cancer.

  

• In the 2009 IPL, he won the Orange Cap as the highest run-scorer of the season, with 572 runs.

  

• He has also played two seasons in BBL (Big Bash League) for Brisbane Heat team.

• In September 2012, he announced his retirements from all forms of Cricket.

• He has scored 8,625 runs from 103 Tests at an average of 50.73, with 30 centuries. In ODI cricket, he has smacked 6,133 runs from 161 at an average of 43.80. Whereas, in T20I cricket, he has scored 308 runs in 9 matches at an average of 51.33 with 144 strike-rate.

• In March 2013, he was appointed by the Queensland Government to handle a tourism campaign to attract more and more Indian tourists to Australia.

• On 15 October 2015, Mahindra Automotive Australia, part of the US Mahindra Group announced his name as their brand ambassador for three years.

• He is also an ambassador to the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation.

• He is also the sponsor of “Parent Project Australia;” a charity group fighting against DMD (Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy). DMD is a genetic muscular disorder e.g. muscle weakness and degeneration.

• He loves cooking and used to cook for his team occasionally during cricket tours. He has also published his cookery books, “The Complete Matthew Hayden Cookbook” and “The Matthew Hayden Cookbook 2.”

• He has hosted a TV show “Home Ground.”

• Shane Warne in his book, “Shane Warne’s Century: My Top 100 Test Cricketers,” rated Matthew Hayden at No. 15. For him, Shane wrote,
  

  “Hayden is into his outdoor pursuits in a big way; his nickname should be ‘Nature Boy,’ not Haydos, or ‘Dos.’”

• He has been a devout Christian since his childhood. During his cricketing career, he crossed himself after making a century in a match. Once, he said,
  

  “Religion has been a tremendous reference point for me. On another instance, he also added that when I’m in trouble, I ask: ‘What would Christ do?’”

• Now, Hayden is associated with several charity firms. He is a professional speaker and is often seen as a cricket commentator.

• In 2018, he suffered from spinal injuries in an accident while surfing with his son, Joshua Hayden, on Stradbroke Island in Queensland.