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MARCH 13, 2015

Russell Jackson

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We really should have seen it coming - Matthew Hayden's star turn at this

World Cup. All the elements of his unconventional genius were there - the

botched insults (remember Harbhajan the "obnoxious weed"?), the way in

post-game interviews he tended to put the English language through a tumble

dryer, words clanging around endlessly until big Haydos ran out of breath.

When Hayden was appointed to the Cricket Australia board, Gideon Haigh

noted that he brought with him "the experience of 103 Tests and numberless

unintelligible press conferences". Bursting through the corporate gates with

zeal, our man had no time for naysayers, but he did acknowledge the hurdles

ahead:

"The game is definitely at the coalface of anticipated change," stated the

earthy Queenslander, then mostly known for his run-making feats and

prodigious output of cookbooks. Might the publishers have missed his calling

as a corporate soothsayer? Soon he was talking the globalisation of brands

and strategic imperatives. If he hadn't lobbed at CA, surely the interest of the

ECB would have been piqued.

In his playing days I always found Hayden a mildly unpleasant chap on account

of his bullying persona, the bowing at milestones, his general gamesmanship,

and tendency to make verbose, undiplomatic statements about his opponents.

Now I fear that such prejudices blinded me to his limitless appeals as a pundit.

With a microphone in his hand he sounds like a raving maniac. In a good way.

Hayden the hard yakker

knee jerk reaction: WHERE IS YASIR

realization: probably not ideal against a bunch of

lefties

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so... any possibility of Irfan coming on as a

substitute for anyone? I hate cricket.

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3/15/2015 Blogs: Russell Jackson: Hayden the hard yakker | Cricket Blogs | ESPN Cricinfo

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No topic is off limit for Matthew Hayden, he'll have a crack at anything. He also

makes Danny Morrison sound like John Arlott.

There's actually a rich and deep archive of Hayden's bon mots out there on

the Internet. I've since learned that "the distinguishing features of [his] baggy

green was the blood, sweat and tears". Haydos saw his homeland, Australia,

as "a planet full of Australians" and his former team-mate Mike Hussey as a

man who liked to "abuse himself internally in the dressing room after a bad

dismissal". He also foretold Kevin Pietersen's injury issues: "Ever since Kevin

Pietersen has been running around on the plains of Africa, he would have

been wearing out his Achilles tendon." I don't know about you, but now I just

want to listen to some Toto.

During Wednesday's game at Bellerive Oval my colleague Geoff Lemon did his

bit for the historical preservation of the Hayden commentary oeuvre,

transcribing one particularly flavoursome burst of Haydos, in this instance an

off-the-wall take on Tasmania's history as a penal colony. We learned, among

other things, that Tasmania was "built on the shackles of hard labour" and

that most of its original inhabitants - criminals for the most part - looked a lot

like David Boon. What a time to be alive the 1800s must have been.

Of course Ramiz Raja was the perfect co-pilot on this magic carpet ride

through the Apple Isle.

I'll be honest, I've been patiently waiting for an heir to Navjot Sidhu's throne to

emerge, so Hayden's performances during this tournament are welcome. In

the intervening time - to paraphrase Haydos - it's been a long, cold, lonely

winter full of the sort of harshness you get in southern Australia when you're

trying to forge a nation out of Britain's cast offs. Get my drift? Never mind.

In Hayden I think I've also seen a future for Channel Nine's beleaguered

coverage of the Australian summer fixtures. JB, Heals and Slats are the

commentary version of Meat Loaf. Let's get Sun Ra in the house to unleash his

improvisational jazz: free association as match analysis. It's uncertain whether

we'd find any more answers to the pressing cricketing questions, but more

likely Haydos will unlock the cosmos and expand our minds. If you can't be

insightful, at least be bizarre.

The only thing I now fear is that the bores in production jobs will step in and

either administer managerial laxatives to Hayden's verbal diarrhoea or else

give him the flick. Commentating on one recent game our new hero said that

if bowlers continued to stray on to the legs of Indian batsmen, Hayden would

jump off a cliff. For the sake of comedy, I really hope they stick to the channel

outside off stump.

Russell Jackson is a cricket lover who blogs about sport in the present and nostalgic tense forthe Guardian Australia and Wasted Afternoons. @rustyjacko

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Keywords: Commentary

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