Hey, Hey it’s Hayden: Former opener’s boorish commentary style from a bygone era should stay there

Matthew Hayden commentates on cricket like he played it – he makes his presence known and he’s bullish in his approach.

It worked as an opening batter for Australia in 273 matches as it intimidated bowlers and made him an all-time great of the game.

But when it comes to commentary, as the great Richie Benaud often said, less is more, particularly in television when words should only be uttered when they add to what the viewers are seeing.

There is an art to saying as little as possible at times or as Benaud, who remains the gold standard for cricket commentators eight years after his death, put it: “The key thing was to learn the value of economy with words and to never insult the viewer by telling them what they can already see.”

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Hayden caused many viewers in the first Test to reach for the mute button or their preferred social media soapbox to voice their disdain due to his propensity for obvious statements and bombastic remarks. 

Matthew Hayden. (Photo by Quinn Rooney – CA/Cricket Australia via Getty Images)

Phrases such as “he’s bowling a buffet” to describe Pat Cummins’ unusually errant first spell in the opening Test or “one wicket brings two” when he was talking about Australia’s search for a breakthrough are the kind of basic utterances you hear from that crusty old bastard in the slips cordon in club cricket who everyone tuned out years ago. 

He “joked” that “Ravi Shastri is going to be all over me like one of Mark Waugh’s cheap suits” about India’s domination of Australia. 

It’s like stumbling across an old episode of Hey, Hey It’s Saturday on YouTube and cringing at how archaic the humour seems now even though it lasted nearly three decades until the end of last century and made a short-lived comeback in 2009 before it was euthanised at long last. 

For AFL fans, he’s getting into Sam Newman territory or for NRL supporters, the kind of simple analysis Paul Vautin would often trot out.

As an all-time great who obliterated records, faced the best of the best bowlers, won World Cups and did pretty much everything in cricket, Hayden should be able to add invaluable insight from his career, not resort to tired cliches and jokes reserved for the after-dinner speaking circuit.

Tell us what we don’t know. Inform the viewers about what someone with his vast on-field experience knows from being out there in the Test arena.

There is a place for a brash commentator like Hayden to be forthright with his views but surely he can do it without coming off as boorish. 

He and Mark Waugh are the two Australians being used by host broadcaster, India’s Star Sports goliath, for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series alongside Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, Sanjay Manjrekar, Ajit Agarkar and Dinesh Karthik.

Michael Clarke was initially due to be on deck with Hayden but was dumped after his recent public meltdown in Noosa.

Hayden was one of the most vocal supporters of Justin Langer before and after his abrupt departure as Australia’s coach at the start of last year. 

Pat Cummins of Australia chases a ball to the boundary. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

You get the sense that he doesn’t particularly like a few members of the current line-up who were adamant they needed to move on from an intense coach like Langer to a more relaxed operator like Andrew McDonald. 

And of course, he’s entitled to that view but he probably needs to ask himself whether his loyalty to Langer is colouring his commentary. 

Hayden, and all commentators for that matter, shouldn’t be matey with the players either.

Benaud’s long-time colleague, Bill Lawry, would rarely, if ever, mingle with the modern-day players during his decades of analysis from the Channel Nine commentary box. 

His theory was that he wouldn’t give his honest opinion on the players if he was too chummy with them. 

Keeping the current stars of the game at arm’s length meant he was not too friendly, not too harsh, he did what he was paid to do – he called it as he saw it.

Hayden’s antipathy towards the current side is very much a case of history repeating.

Richie Benaud, Ian Chappell and Bill Lawry in 2013. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

As much as many sportspeople say during their playing days that they won’t bag the next generation when they’re retired, they continue to do it.

Back in 1997 when Hayden was struggling to convert his Sheffield Shield dominance into a permanent place in the Australian team, another of the Nine commentary Hall of Famers, Ian Chappell, was one of his more strident critics. 

The Queensland opener hit back with “I would like to see some of the runs that Ian Chappell got. It’s all right to go hiding down the order. I have certainly scored more Shield runs at a higher average than Ian Chappell. I have played seven Tests but can’t wait to play more and make him eat his words. For every Ian Chappell there are 10 people saying they want me in there.”

Hiding down the order? Cricinfo was very much the all-encompassing behemoth of stats even back then in the early days of the Netscape era – Hayden should have dialled up his modem, waited for the screeching noise and checked Chappell’s career before shooting off his mouth. 

Chappell batted at first drop in 91 of his 136 Test innings (as well as two more as an opener) in an era before helmets and the many high-tech protection equipment worn by batters. 

Hayden did indeed go on to make Chappell “eat his words”, overtaking his career tally, finishing with 8625 runs to his predecessor’s 5345.

For those of us who are glued to the TV for this series but come unstuck when Hayden gets behind the microphone, in the words of Salt n Pepa, “pick up the needle, and press pause, or turn the radio off”. Well, not quite. 

One of the joys of watching cricket with the fangled-dangled devices of today is being able to pause the play and synchronising the commentary from the ABC or SEN commentators. 

The pain of that minute or so marrying up the vision with the audio will be much shorter than the torture of another episode of Hey, Hey It’s Hayden.