While Matthew Hayden run of low scores looks to be terminal, Michael Hussey seems to be a victim of the law of averages.
The SMH’s Alex Brown has some interesting statistics on the current form of Hayden and Hussey. Hayden has scored 56 runs this summer in six innings at an average of 9.3. His highest score is a 36 run out against New Zealand.
There have no ducks, but the sequence has an echo for me of Greg Chappell’s seven ducks in a row, in various forms of international cricket, before he scored a final Test century against Pakistan in his last Test innings.
At age 37, Hayden is not likely to improve much more, although like Greg Chappell in his last season he may be capable of scoring the occasional big score.
Hussey is in a different stage of his career, the consolidation stage, and not the terminal stage like Hayden.
The law of averages is catching him out and restoring his Test average to more historically likely levels.
At one stage in Hussey’s career, he averaged 76, the second best by a large margin in Test history.
This season he has scored three ducks in his last four match when he went for two years at the start of his career before scoring a duck.
Hussey’s average now is 61, the fifth highest in Test cricket.
This is still too high for Hussey who, although he is a most competent and intelligent batsman, hardly strikes one as among the very elite of Test batsmen.
My belief is that Hussey will end his career with an average around 50, the sort of average that Graeme Smith currently holds.
If this is right then expect to see some more failures from Hussey, which will bring his average down to a level that he can match every time he bats.
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