Hayden's path from last-chance saloon to ICC Hall of Fame

It's a little over 25 years since the second coming of Matthew Hayden – an arrival that set him upon the path to today's ICC Hall of Fame induction – found its inauspicious beginnings in the quiet New Zealand town of Hamilton.

Autumn had dawned on the North Island, there was a chill in the air, and Steve Waugh's Australians led a three-Test series against the Kiwis two-nil when Hayden replaced an out-of-form Greg Blewett to partner Michael Slater at the top of the order.

The visitors won the match, extending their winning streak to 10 straight Tests, but the Queensland opener – donning the Baggy Green for the first time in three years – made just two and 37 to add another unconvincing page to what was then a brief story of his stop-start international career.

Two weeks later, amid a whirlwind tour to South Africa, Hayden was dropped from an ODI side he had only returned to that February after a six-year hiatus, having made ducks in his past two starts. Australia then hosted the Proteas for a three-match winter ODI series in Melbourne, but their burly opener was a world away, captaining Northamptonshire in Division Two of the County Championship.

When the ensuing 2000-01 season dawned, there was speculation about Hayden's place in the Test XI, particularly with Matthew Elliott and Mike Hussey having been handed Cricket Australia contracts. Then, a fortnight before the first Test against the West Indies, Hayden produced a timely double of 81 and 118no for Queensland against Victoria in the Pura Cup, ensuring he kept his place in the Test XI.

"He's coming into some form at the right time," said selector Allan Border, a man who had long been in his corner.

Still it did not quite materialise for the then 29-year-old. Through a five-Test home summer, there were flashes of the batting bully who had destroyed domestic attacks for much of the 1990s, but there was also fodder for the critics; despite some promising starts, Hayden did not reach 70 against a Windies attack that was a poor imitation of its former self.

It was a bad period to be under-achieving as an Australian batter, with the country bursting at the seams with batting talent. Among them, on-the-outer quartet Elliott, Damien Martyn, Michael Bevan and Greg Blewett were all pushing for recalls, while uncapped West Australians Simon Katich and Hussey were also turning heads.

In that context, the looming tour of India – famous as Waugh's 'Final Frontier' – shaped as Hayden's last-chance saloon. At the time, his Test average of 24.36 from 13 matches was the leanest of any Australian opener in more than a century (min 20 inns). Yet Waugh, for one, was unfazed.

"His stats at the moment, you can throw those out the window, because they'll be close to double when he finishes his Test career," he said that Christmas. "He knows he can get big scores. It's going to happen shortly."

In the weeks before the India tour, Hayden retreated with his wife Kelly to their holiday home on North Stradbroke Island. There he resolved to make the three Tests count. He returned to Brisbane and asked Allan Border Field curator Ross Harris to produce a dry, spinning pitch in the nets, then invited a handful of the city's best young spinners to bowl at him for hours on end.  

Hayden's intensive education process continued when the team landed in Nagpur and played an India A side that included 20-year-old off-spinner Harbhajan Singh. In that match, the Australian batted almost four hours for innings of 49 and 37, determining in the process that attack – via a number of sweep shots he had kept in his quiver – was going to be his best form of defence.

And so he again went to work, employing sweeping lessons he had learned from Bob Simpson during the 1993 Ashes tour, and incorporating expert advice gleaned during a spin clinic he had attended in India three years earlier.

"I decided to focus on the sweep, practicing endlessly, almost obsessively," Hayden later wrote in Standing My Ground. "Never had I been more focused or desperate to succeed."

And succeed he did, to the tune of 549 runs at 109.80 in three Tests. Australia lost the series 2-1, but Hayden, almost seven years on from his Test debut, was away. From that tour until his next to India in October 2004, he rode a wave of confidence and wrote himself into the record books, playing 42 Tests, scoring 19 hundreds and averaging 69.58. It rushed him along to 5,000 Test runs; only Bradman and Hobbs have reached the milestone in fewer innings.

Through that window, Hayden dominated Test cricket in much the same way he had the domestic scene in Australia, batting with a belligerence that made him the most imposing figure in the game. He shot to the top of the ICC batting rankings and even prompted his skipper, Waugh, to say: "Matthew Hayden's playing as well as anybody's probably ever played the game."

His trademark move, which became known as 'the Hayden shuffle' (see the video below), typified his assured approach: to the fast bowlers he would advance at the point of delivery – one, two, three steps down the pitch – then crash the ball over mid-on. It was a shot that summed up not only Hayden's self-belief but, more broadly, his team's overt aggression.

In consecutive home summers he made up for lost time, scoring hundreds in three straight matches against South Africa (including the first of six in seven years at the MCG), then producing a statement knock on day one of the 2002-03 Ashes at the Gabba; after being asked to bat first by England captain Nasser Hussain, Australia were 2-364 at stumps and Hayden was 186no. He finished that match with 197 and 103, and made another century in Melbourne – his eighth in the space of 13 Tests.

Overseas, there was his forgotten 119 in Sharjah, 2002, in which he batted in temperatures reportedly nearing 50C and outscored his opponents for the match (Pakistan were all out 59 & 53), while on the 2003 tour of the Caribbean he made 100no in Trinidad and 177 in Antigua.

That year Hayden also completed his reintroduction to what had become Ricky Ponting's ODI side. Again, India 2001 had been the starting point of the journey – his Test form demanded his inclusion in the ODI series that followed, and having forced a reshuffle (Adam Gilchrist was moved to seven) his form at the top of the order continued with scores of 99, 57, 111 and 36.

With Mark Waugh's ODI career drawing to a close the following summer, Hayden was the readymade replacement. By the time of the 2003 World Cup, he was the world's top-ranked batter in both formats, having joined forces with Gilchrist for an opening partnership that would take in two unbeaten World Cup campaigns and become comfortably Australia's most prolific in the format (5,409 runs at 47.44).

Hayden had his sights set on more records when Australia hosted Zimbabwe for two Tests at the front-end of the 2003-04 summer. His epic 380 in Perth, which included 11 sixes, was briefly a world record score and represents the powerful left-hander at his most commanding, notwithstanding the lesser quality of his opponent.

In the two months prior, Hayden had again retreated to his oasis of calm, North Stradbroke Island, where he had mixed relaxation with intense training via a demanding regimen on the island's sizeable sandhills. Mentally, too, he was prepped for the summer ahead, later writing: "I couldn't have been in a better state of mind for a big innings."

And so it happened. On day one at the WACA Ground, 76no at tea became 183no at stumps, which on day two morphed into history. Hayden received all manner of plaudits and attention (including a congratulatory phone call from Brian Lara, who would seize the record back around six months later) and later declared it was the best he ever hit a cricket ball. Considering his back catalogue, it is some statement.

Ironically, Hayden's run as the world's most dominant Test opener ended back in India, in 2004. Fresh off twin tons against Sri Lanka in Cairns, the heavyweight series marked the beginning of a stretch of 16 Tests without a hundred, a period that also includes most of the 2005 Ashes, during which his battles against England's four-man pace attack – and their reverse-swing masterclass – almost cost him his place in the side.

Typically however, Hayden found a way to bounce back, reverting to playing straighter for longer, and steeling himself to grind down the bowlers in the fifth Test of that landmark series. The upshot was a seven-hour, 303-ball 138, which gave Australia a shot at squaring the ledger on the final day at The Oval.

That innings proved the beginning of Hayden's renaissance years. He returned home and clubbed 111 and 77 against an ICC World XI, then was among the leading figures as Australia circled the return Ashes campaign on their calendar, and duly delivered a five-nil redemption whitewash. It was a triumph sandwiched by a broader achievement, as Ponting's men went on a run of 16 straight Test wins. In those matches, Hayden was ever-present, scoring five hundreds and averaging 51.67.

Through a similar period, he had ridden out a rough trot in one-day cricket to make a timely re-emergence ahead of the 2007 ODI World Cup. His spot alongside Gilchrist was sealed back in Hamilton, where he blazed 10 sixes against the Kiwis in a then Australian men's record 181no. He broke a toe in that innings but overcame the injury to take his place for Australia's first World Cup game in the Caribbean. It was in that tournament that Hayden enjoyed his finest hour in the format. As the two-time defending champs again went unbeaten, the 35-year-old hit a tournament-high 659 runs, his three hundreds highlighted by a remarkable 66-ball effort against South Africa that was, at the time, a World Cup record.

Hayden turned 36 before the 2007-08 Border-Gavaskar series but showed few signs of slowing down, hitting hundreds in three consecutive Tests. The third of those was his 30th in his 94th Test; it made him the fastest to that milestone, but it was also his last in international cricket. In January 2009, with a cavalcade of his legendary teammates having departed before him, he played his final match for Australia.

"I know that now is the time to move on," he said. "I've lived the dream of every kid who has ever picked up a bat and ball and wanted to wear the Baggy Green."

Still there was time for another act. A three-year spell with Chennai Super Kings in the newly-formed Indian Premier League took in a tournament top run-scorer gong in 2009, and a year later, in his farewell IPL match, the winners trophy marked a fitting end to his near-decade long love affair with India.

And then at 40, Hayden played all seven matches for the Brisbane Heat in the inaugural Big Bash season, belting a top score of 76 from 51 balls in front of a Gabba faithful whom had been drawn to watch him one last time.

By that point, 20 years had come and gone since his first-class debut at the same venue. On day one of that match, a Sheffield Shield clash against South Australia, Hayden had made 149. Legend has it, he had enquired beforehand if anyone had ever scored a double century in their maiden first-class innings.

And so began the career of an ICC Hall of Famer.