Matthew Hayden - One of our greats or flat track bully?

[Minotaur]

This was the post I had in mind - it was a long time ago and does not say exactly what I remember it saying - does however raise the interesting question of who Australia's best number threes are because, at least statisitically it drops away pretty quickly after Bradman and Ponting.


25 Nov 2005, 11:14 #30
Wicked Lester
BigFooty Member


Hawthorn

Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Richmond Re: Where amongst history does Ponting rate?

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Personally I rate Greg Chappell well ahead of Border and Steve Waugh and for a number of reasons.

Higher average, more centuries per tests played, batted higher in the order than Border and Waugh, played in a more competitive period (certainly more so than that of the second half of Waugh's career), missed his prime years playing WSC, where he scored another 5-6 centuries and averaged 56.

I think the most compelling argument is that his playing record places him among the greats of the game, even though during his time game few players (Miandad, Richards, Gavaskar) averaged 50.

As for "not touring" well yes he opted not to make the 1981 tour of England and the 1982 tour of Pakistan for several reasons. Firstly his marriage was wobbly (remember wives were not in the mix then, and while they were well paid they were not in the millionaire league of today's players. Secondly he was trying to play with the aid of pain killers due to a buggered back and struggled on flights, and thirdly he was in a twilight of his career.

Anyway I digress.

Ponting is I suspect under-rated at this stage. Notwithstanding the lack of competition in world cricket over the past decade, he does something that Tendulkar, Lara, Kallis, even Border, and most defintely Steve Waugh did not want to do, or could not do, and that is bat at 3, a position traditionally regarded as the toughest in the batting order.

Number 3's of Ponting calibre are so rare in test history that I suspect you don't appreciate how good they are until they're gone.

While the doughty number 5 or 6 batsman is often the more heroic character leading rear guard actions when the top order fails, a successful number 3 is less obvious in the public eye. If they succeed then chances are the innings will be solid and imposing - in other words there probably wont be a collapse.

So in my view you have Bradman then the rest, but having watched test cricket for almost 40 years my number two (Australian) batsman is Greg Chappell, the perfect number 4, then Neil Harvey (another number 3).

Next comes Border (who truly was a lone hand when Australian cricket was at its nadir).

Next is Ian Chappell, greatly under-rated - and again a very successful number 3 - whose record would so much more imposing if you included the results of the 1971-72 series against the ROW and WSC.

Then in a cluster I'd have Tugga, Ponting, Hayden and perhaps one or two others such as Walters and Gilly.

But Ponting IMHO, by the time he's finished will be in number 2, 3, or 4 position.

Number 3 batsman who average in the mid 50's are just priceless.

 

[Thommo 42]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

Wicked Lester's post wasn't bad, but he lost a bit of cred when Hayden entered discussions. Hayden isn't fit for inclusion in any 'best ever' discussions.

 

[skipper kelly]

Matthew Hayden - In our best XI or Flat track Bully?

^ A lazy 8625 runs at 50.73 with 30 100's should attest to his qualities as a cricketer.

 

[Thommo 42]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

^ A lazy 8625 runs at 50.73 with 30 100's should attest to his qualities as a cricketer.

Yep, he was a quality cricketer, but he is a long way from a great.

He spent the 1990's playing domestic cricket in his prime because he simply wasn't good enough, he played domestic cricket because the likes of Donald, Pollock, Ambrose, Walsh, Akram, Younis, Srinath and the rest were roaming the world, and he couldn't cope. He returned a decade later when the new-ball attacks world-wide were pathetic, and he dined out. Funnily enough, on the rare ocassion during that period when he did run into a good quick, he was found wanting, almost without exception.

He's not even as good a cricketer as Slater or Taylor, don't let the stats fool you.

 

[crownie]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

Yep, he was a quality cricketer, but he is a long way from a great.

He spent the 1990's playing domestic cricket in his prime because he simply wasn't good enough, he played domestic cricket because the likes of Donald, Pollock, Ambrose, Walsh, Akram, Younis, Srinath and the rest were roaming the world, and he couldn't cope. He returned a decade later when the new-ball attacks world-wide were pathetic, and he dined out. Funnily enough, on the rare ocassion during that period when he did run into a good quick, he was found wanting, almost without exception.

He's not even as good a cricketer as Slater or Taylor, don't let the stats fool you.

i think his prime would of been 01-05

playing for australia, weird huh?

 

[skipper kelly]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

Yep, he was a quality cricketer, but he is a long way from a great.

He spent the 1990's playing domestic cricket in his prime because he simply wasn't good enough, he played domestic cricket because the likes of Donald, Pollock, Ambrose, Walsh, Akram, Younis, Srinath and the rest were roaming the world, and he couldn't cope. He returned a decade later when the new-ball attacks world-wide were pathetic, and he dined out. Funnily enough, on the rare ocassion during that period when he did run into a good quick, he was found wanting, almost without exception.

He's not even as good a cricketer as Slater or Taylor, don't let the stats fool you.

Many greats like Hayden were dropped early in their test careers. Hayden is a great of the game. The stats dont lie for him.

But it comes back to the same old tired line. When Australia dominate they have no opposition. Or lets just pick a period where a player failed and hang our hat on that. Its a bit like the Kallis V Australia argument. Australia have been the best for most of his career and his overall figures against them are average at best.

Quite simply when 'best of' sides are mentioned most people include in the discussion Hayden just like they do with Kallis. Unless of course they have some bug bear.

Anyway 30 tons at over 50 will do me fine and he certainly proved me wrong after a slow start to his test career.

BTW. He made tons against Walsh, Donald, Pollock, Waqar, Shrinath, never played against Akram and played Ambrose in 2 tests.

 

[DIG]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

Many greats like Hayden were dropped early in their test careers. Hayden is a great of the game. The stats dont lie for him.

But it comes back to the same old tired line. When Australia dominate they have no opposition. Or lets just pick a period where a player failed and hang our hat on that. Its a bit like the Kallis V Australia argument. Australia have been the best for most of his career and his overall figures against them are average at best.

Good point. To say Slater or even Taylor was better than him is quite laughable really and based purely on the poorest period of his career before he matured and improved into the greatest opener of his time.

BTW. He made tons against Walsh, Donald, Pollock, Waqar, Shrinath, never played against Akram and played Ambrose in 2 tests.

For all the glory talk of how much better fast bowlers used to be (albeit true), the late 90s-2000s produced arguably the greatest period of spin bowlers of all time led by Warne and Murali. This always gets overlooked when people talk about the poorer quality of bowlers in recent times.

Hayden also made tons against Murali in Sri Lanka, Harbhajan in India when he was destroying the rest of the side, plus Kumble and Vettori.

 

[King Elvis]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

The Dos was a Colossus.

 

[Caesar]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

Hayden's an overrated flat track bully, but he was still a very good batsman. Personally I'd never seriously consider him for an alltime XI, but ranking him below Taylor/Slater I think is probably more nostalgia than anything else.

Taylor in particular became a pretty average bat after taking up the captaincy. He's one of my favourite players of all time, but watching him in the latter stages of his career was painful.

 

[King Elvis]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

Hayden's an overrated flat track bully, but he was still a very good batsman. Personally I'd never seriously consider him for an alltime XI, but ranking him below Taylor/Slater I think is probably more nostalgia than anything else.

Taylor in particular became a pretty average bat after taking up the captaincy. He's one of my favourite players of all time, but watching him in the latter stages of his career was painful.

Didn't Haydos dominate in India?

 

[crownie]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

For all the glory talk of how much better fast bowlers used to be (albeit true), the late 90s-2000s produced arguably the greatest period of spin bowlers of all time led by Warne and Murali. This always gets overlooked when people talk about the poorer quality of bowlers in recent times.

people only say that cause batsman have dominated the game for the last dozen years, its not cause the bowlers are worse its cause the pitches favor the batsan more. Watch footage from the 80's and apart from the Windies and the odd decent bowler in each side it wasn't as great as people make it out to be.

Also batting skills have progressed more then bowling as time has gone on which is evident by how many batsman these days averaging well over 50.

 

[krusden]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

Hayden's an overrated flat track bully, but he was still a very good batsman. Personally I'd never seriously consider him for an alltime XI, but ranking him below Taylor/Slater I think is probably more nostalgia than anything else.

Taylor in particular became a pretty average bat after taking up the captaincy. He's one of my favourite players of all time, but watching him in the latter stages of his career was painful.

Haydos in India:
- average of 51.35 from 22 innings.
HIGHER than his averages in: bangladesh (3 innings), england (18), NZ (7) south africa (18) and sri lanka (8). highest score 2003.
"overrated flat track bully".... thats a bloody myth and a load of BS.

 

[crownie]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

Yep, he was a quality cricketer, but he is a long way from a great.

He spent the 1990's playing domestic cricket in his prime because he simply wasn't good enough, he played domestic cricket because the likes of Donald, Pollock, Ambrose, Walsh, Akram, Younis, Srinath and the rest were roaming the world, and he couldn't cope. He returned a decade later when the new-ball attacks world-wide were pathetic, and he dined out. Funnily enough, on the rare ocassion during that period when he did run into a good quick, he was found wanting, almost without exception.

wouldnt get a game for India today, class bowlers dont finish their career with a average of 30.

 

[Caesar]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

Haydos in India:
- average of 51.35 from 22 innings.
HIGHER than his averages in: bangladesh (3 innings), england (18), NZ (7) south africa (18) and sri lanka (8). highest score 2003.
"overrated flat track bully".... thats a bloody myth and a load of BS.

Nice selective quoting of statistics there . Aside from India and the West Indies his overseas record leaves a lot to be desired. He particularly struggled on any sort of pitch that had a bit of life to it. Average in England? 34. South Africa? 34. New Zealand? 28. Even elsewhere on the subcontinent his record is poor.

Like I said, he was a very good batsman. But his statistics are severely inflated by plundering a lot of runs on fairly meek home pitches against unimpressive bowling attacks. There's quite a few Australian openers I rate more highly despite his raw average.

 

[King Elvis]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

wouldnt get a game for India today, class bowlers dont finish their career with a average of 30.

Yea, was odd wasn't it?

Donald, Ambrose, Younis, Akram....SRISANTH?!

 

[Santana]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

wouldnt get a game for India today, class bowlers dont finish their career with a average of 30.

It's pretty hard to be a fast bowler in India to be fair but yeah, he isn't in that class of bowlers named there.

 

[Andrew Mc]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

Yea, was odd wasn't it?

Donald, Ambrose, Younis, Akram....SRISANTH?!

Personally I would have left Donald out against Australia too. 53 wickets @ 31.07, SR 61.6 isn't anything flash.

 

[crownie]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

#39

#21 in Australia equalling Hayden.

if we are going to bag Haydos bout only making runs on the 'roads' in australia then we better start doing it to all the asian players who inflate their stats on their pitches.

 

[footyfreak]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

The Dos was a Colossus.

 

[Thommo 42]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

If Hayden was as good as people think, he would have played regular test cricket before he was 30. He went on an Ashes Tour in 1993 and didn't secure a test place until 2001, when worldwide fast bowling was at it's lowest ebb.

Make no mistake, he was a good player, but there is a big difference between 'being dropped early in your career' and being out of the side for 8 years because there are better players.

The only reason the truel great players of Hayden's vintage have similar averages, is because all of them played heaps of test cricket in the 90's when batting was far more difficult. If you were to take 10 great batsman of similar age to Hayden and exclude their 1990's form, their averages would rise significantly. Hayden had the advantage of having no base, because he wasn't up to it in the 90's.

As an example, Hayden basically has his career average of 50 for post 2000, as he plaed very little cricket prior to that. In that same period...

Yousuf - 60
Kallis - 60
Lara - 58
Ponting - 58
Ghambir - 57
Jayawardene - 57
Sangakarra - 57
Cullinan (haha!) - 55
Thorpe - 55
Ul-Haq - 54
Tillerkeratne - 54
Dravid - 54
Chanderpaul - 54
Flower - 53
Khan - 53
Kirsten - 53
Sehwag - 53

There are others, but these blokes all played in excess of 20 tests, most of them over 50. All of them averaged huge numbers in the period Hayden was averaging good numbers, but all of them have the disadvantage that they played extensive test cricket in the 90's which drags their career average down. Hayden's average doesn't have that low base to come from because he wasn't even good enough to be playing test cricket.

If you find these players in the 90's and check out their averages from that period (where available, some of them weren't there!)

Lara - 51 (-7)
Kirsten - 41 (-12) - good comparison as he is an opener
Ul Haq - 43 (-11)
Cullinan - 42 (-13)
Dravid - 49 (-5)
Flower - 44 (-9)
Chanderpaul - 40 (-14)
Ponting - 44 (-14)
Thorpe - 39 (-16)
Kallis - 41 (-19)
Tillerkeratne - 39 (-15)
Yousuf - 34 (-26)

Even Langer averaged 38 in the 90's and a tick under 50 in the 2000's - so essentially, he isn't really far behind Hayden at all, given he performed almost exactly as well as Hayden did while they played together, but had 40 odd tests under the belt before that to weigh down his stats. In the 1990's, outstanding players like Mark Waugh averaged a mere 41 and only 3 blokes who played more than 10 tests averaged 50+, and they were Tendulkar, S.Waugh and Lara.....blokes that have more ability in their little toe than Matthew Hayden.

Absolute gun openers like Anwar and Slater averaged 45, Hayden wasn't even good enough.

I reckon this article says it all

http://www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/384173.html

Although to correct the author, and give Hayden his due - he did play one great innings, his 127 against the Pakkies out of 220 when we bowled them out for 50 and 60.

Hundreds piled up, against Indians, New Zealanders, South Africans. When he got to 100, he'd draw a cross in the air, then shoot for 200. Someone from the formerly critical press pack asked him what had changed. Hayden's first thought, as Greg Baum has observed, was to reply: "Only your mind."

For how long he thought it, and whether he went close to actually saying it, no one knows. But the thought was, on reflection, a touch too hubristic. For one significant change, seldom remarked on, was that Hayden's earliest tormentors - Donald and de Villiers; Ambrose, Courtney Walsh and Ian Bishop - had all conked out. Shaun Pollock's zippiest days were behind him, Chris Cairns' too. The few lethal quicks still in circulation were playing on the same side as Hayden.

 

[crownie]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

while i agree Hayden probaly shouldn't make a Aussie best 11.....

Taylor opened for most of the 90's leaving one spot opened which was taken in 93 by Slater who then played 70 odd tests, Slater then got dropped at the same time Hayden was playing for Australia (and dominating). I think your assuming cricketers are like AFL footballers whos peak is late 20's however good batsman seem to explode runs 30-35 age

Mark Waugh was a downhill skier who never got his average over 45 (not good enough in any era) after his tenth test, yes he was stylish and looked good but that overshadowed how poor his output actually was, doubt he would even average 50 if playing today.Again your calling Slater a gun but like Mark Waugh his attractive style overshadowed how poor he was in spurts, look at a list of all his innings, he would do nothing for 5 tests then make a 100.

As for your stats in the 90's, Ponting and Kallis had barely played 30 tests and Yousuf debuted in 1998 so thats hardly accurate. When Hussey average over 70 early on people said don't take it serious as its to early so why should we take those averages into consideration early in their careers? J.P Duminy after his great start now averages under 40, maybe he will get this back up after he has played 30 odd tests and matured?

 

[skipper kelly]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

Using stats to prove a point but then disregard Haydens stats because of some fallacy that when he played the opposition was weak.

I also love nostalgia and was very sceptical of Hayden early on but eventually the weight of numbers tells the story.

Of all the Australians with 10 100's or more he is 2nd behind Bradman in strike rate for 100's per test match.

Im not sure what more had to do.

3rd - Most Hundred for Australia.
2nd - strike rate of 100's per innings for Australia in Australia.
3rd - strike rate of 100s per innings for Australia in all countries.
4th - most runs for Australia.
1st - highest Test score for Australia.
7th - highest average for Australia.

14th - all time test runs
2nd - highest individual test score
7th - all time test hundreds
3rd - (of the 31 players with 20 100's or more all time) 3rd behind Bradman and Ponting for 100s per innings in all countries. Sobers is 4th.

Of course all these stats are meaningless but only for Hayden.

Its OK not to like a player but geez. Slater and Anwar FFS.

 

[Caesar]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

I don't think Hayden's stats are meaningless, but it's a valid point to say that they were bolstered a heck of a lot by good performances at home on flat pitches.

If you look recent Australian batsmen by average outside Australia, his is 41 - nothing to be sneezed at, but not great. Even just amongst openers, that puts him somewhere between Boon and Taylor.

Don't get me wrong, I think he was better than both those players precisely BECAUSE he did so well at home. I'm also not suggesting that home performances be ignored. But it does highlight that Hayden's raw statistics aren't the full story when it comes to ranking him amongst the greats.

Like I said earlier, I think he was to an extent a flat track bully which is the reason that his statistics are so inflated. That's certainly not all he was - he was quite obviously still a very good batsman over and above that dimension of his game - but not as great as his raw average and run records suggest.

 

[krusden]

Re: Ponting's fall from stratospheric heights

Nice selective quoting of statistics there . Aside from India and the West Indies his overseas record leaves a lot to be desired. He particularly struggled on any sort of pitch that had a bit of life to it. Average in England? 34. South Africa? 34. New Zealand? 28. Even elsewhere on the subcontinent his record is poor.

Like I said, he was a very good batsman. But his statistics are severely inflated by plundering a lot of runs on fairly meek home pitches against unimpressive bowling attacks. There's quite a few Australian openers I rate more highly despite his raw average.

crap. i quoted his stats for India where australians generally fail.

and to "thommo 42"... quoting an article of cricinfo that Slags Off Australians is like shooting fish in a barrel.

 

[Cousin Jed]

Matthew Hayden - In our best XI or Flat track Bully?

I have moved the posts over from the Ponting thread.