Former Australian opening batsman Matthew Lawrence Hayden was born on 29 October 1971 in Kingaroy, Queensland, Australia.
A left-handed aggressive player, his technical limitations were more than compensated by his mental and physical fortitude. In his career that extended 15 years, Hayden was renowned for scoring quickly in Test matches as well as ODIs.
He made his first-class debut when he represented Queensland in the Sheffield Shield tournament in 1991-1992 season. Hayden was picked up for the 1993 Ashes tour against arch-rivals England. His international career began indifferently, as he was mostly on the bench due to a series of poor performances. His Test career blossomed only during the 2001 tour of India where Hayden scored 549 runs in a three-test series with an average of 109.8.
This definitely was the turning point of his Test career because it cemented his place in the Australian Test team. One of his best-ever performances was witnessed against Zimbabwe at the WACA (Perth) when he amassed 380 runs off 437 balls.
Though Hayden made his ODI debut in 1993 against England, he became a force to reckon with this format only in 2000. Hayden was an integral part of the ODI World-Cup winning Australian team in 2003. His unbeaten knock of 181 against New Zealand in 2007 was his highest score in ODIs.
The six feet one inch tall Queenslander made his T20I debut in June 2005 against New Zealand. In fact, in the maiden ICC World Twenty20 championship of 2007, he was the highest scorer, with 265 runs.
In January 2009, Hayden officially announced his retirement from international cricket, though he continued representing the Chennai Super Kings in the IPL during 2008 -2010. Hayden earned the Orange Cap for being the 2009 season’s highest run-scorer with 572 runs.
In September 2012, Hayden hung his boots from all cricket formats. He was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame in 2017.
He is now a regular commentator for various cricket channels and also serves as Ambassador of the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation.
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