The current discussion over Matthew Hayden’s form is moot. He is not in form. His decline in run making ability goes back over 40 innings. In that time he has averaged almost 20 runs less than his career high. The last 20 innings have seen a steeper plunge.
His 78 ball innings of 31 in the first innings of the 3rd Test was agonizing, not so much for the paucity of stroke play, the lack of timing and balance or the scoring rate, but for the pain he was putting himself and his supporters through.
Hayden can still bat, a bit, but not to the elevated level of his genuine greatness.
Anyone who averages 50 opening the batting and makes 8,000 runs can be considered one of the very best. Despite the growing criticism of the selectors who continue to sustain him, the media of all locations, and many fans, he continues to delude himself.
We all want our champions to leave us in a blaze of glory, or at the very least, somewhere near the top of their game.
Legends who soldier on, refusing even a sideways glance in the mirror or having their closest allies prop them up with affection rather than the truth, so often leave us with tainted memories. That is not fair to the participant or the audience.
Greg Chappell broke the great knight’s record and exited stage right in the same match. DK Lillee broke bones and records and left with a reputation unsullied by aching joints and slowing muscles.
Rod Marsh joined his long time team mates after a brief encore in one day cricket, his ‘keeping still precise. Steve Waugh marched on at the start of the decline but re-climbed the mountain for a final hurrah.
Graeme Langlands’ 1975 Grand Final horror haunts me as a career one game too many, and the tragedy is that we remember this horror above his lengthy and sparkling career.
Ian Chappell said “You just KNOW when it is time to give it away”, but in the era of barrow loads of cash and buckets brimmed with fame, fully professional since teenage and narrowly educated players, it appears that most of them simply don’t know when enough is enough.
Mind you, it is not easy to terminate employment, a job, a career, a way of life without suffering some pain, some indecision.
It is impossible to be objective about just such a decision. Playing, training, preparing mentally and physically, touring, frequent flyer points, team meetings, team mates, team victories and widespread notoriety become a way of life.
The game and the lifestyle is not so much WHAT you do as WHO you are. It can take years to rid your brain of the desire to be out in the middle taking strike or marking your run up.
Retired insurance salesman can find it hard to fill their leisure time after a lifetime of routine, of security, of making a living. Professional sportsmen are no less restive, maybe even more so because at an age somewhere short of middle you are suddenly, and I do mean suddenly, cut off from that which sustains you.
The competition and the camaraderie finish in the 30’s mostly (Hayden is 37 and had a long metaphorical and literal innings) and life goes on for another 50 years if you are lucky. Professional cricket has an astonishingly high rate of suicide, there are books dedicated to the subject. They cannot live properly without the game, or so they think.
Whatever the rationale for finishing a career it is always more palatable if the final call is made by oneself rather than the axe wielding selectors tormented by the howling press.
There does not seem to be an overwhelming amount of realistic or structured observation coming from the Australian team or those that surround it at the moment, but it would be fitting and proper if Matthew Hayden, the imposing left handed, record breaking Aussie opener hesitated in front of the mirror and looked deeply into his soul and asked “can I keep doing this to myself and my fans?”.
No one plays forever.
The opener scored a man-of-the-match 89 off 30, in the 10-wicket win against Lucknow Super Giants that came off just 9.4 overs.
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